Single Minded Quotes & Sayings

There was no singles problem until singles got so single-minded that they stopped wasting time with anyone ineligible. Before that, it was understood that one of society's main tasks was matchmaking. People with lifelong friendships and ties to local nonprofessional organizations did not have to fear that isolation would accompany retirement, old age, or losing a spouse. Overburdened householders could count on the assistance not only of their own extended families, but of the American tradition of neighborliness. — Judith Martin

Writing of only one small part of the broader problem, namely the single-minded pursuit of individualistic 'rights,' [Don] Feder is not wrong to conclude:

Absent a delicate balance--rights and duties, freedom and order--the social fabric begins to unravel. The rights explosion of the past three decades has taken us on a rapid descent to a culture without civility, decency, or even that degree of discipline necessary to maintain an advanced industrial civilization. Our cities are cesspools, our urban schools terrorist training camps, our legislatures brothels where rights are sold to the highest electoral bidder. — D. A. Carson

I rock in his arms under the stars and the blanket of night air, unwilling or unable to tear myself away. — Lisa Daily

I was single-minded and I had tunnel vision. Now it's time for a change. — Evelyn Ashford

Daniel reaches out and grabs my hand to steady me. His skin is warm and soft, and holding his hand sends an electric sensation up my right arm. He holds my hand firmly until I regain my balance, which takes me a heartbeat longer than it should have.
"Thanks for keeping me from falling," I say. He smiles warmly.
"Sometimes we just can't stop ourselves from falling, cher. — Lisa Daily

Eschew the ordinary, disdain the commonplace. If you have a single-minded need for something, let it be the unusual, the esoteric, the bizarre, the unexpected. — Chuck Jones

The Kochs were unusually single-minded, but they were not alone. They were among a small, rarefied group of hugely wealthy, archconservative families that for decades poured money, often with little public disclosure, into influencing how Americans thought and voted. Their efforts began in earnest in the second half of the twentieth century. In addition to the Kochs, this group included Richard Mellon Scaife, an heir to the Mellon banking and Gulf Oil fortunes; Harry and Lynde Bradley, midwesterners enriched by defense contracts; John M. Olin, a chemical and munitions company titan; the Coors brewing family of Colorado; and the DeVos family if Michigan, founders of the Amway marketing empire. Each was different, but together they formed a new generation of philanthropist, bent on using billions if dollars from their private foundations to alter the direction of American politics. — Jane Mayer

You want something? Go get it with single-minded devotion. — Reggie Lee

By puberty I learned that nothing worth having could be easily attained and to succeed one must be single minded. — Russell Brand

You have always been fond of little Nina." "Of course I have." "And in part, that is because she is such an independent spirit." "Precisely." "Then you must trust in her. And even if she is single-minded to a fault, you must trust that life will find her in time. For eventually, it finds us all." The Count nodded for a moment, reflecting on Marina's — Amor Towles

I sort of have a dog-minded single strategy but I am a little more open to stuff that's out there, now and looking at scripts in the world and seeing if something that already exists can spark my interest and my curiosity. — Todd Haynes

Only three routes of upward mobility were available to socially ambitious upstarts such as Columbus: war, the Church, and the sea. Columbus probably contemplated all three: he wanted a clerical career for one of his brothers, and fancied himself as "a captain of cavaliers and conquests." But seafaring was a natural choice, especially for a boy from a maritime community as single-minded as that of Genoa. Opportunities for employment and profit abounded. — Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Australianism' means single-minded determination to win - to win within the laws but, if necessary, to the last limit within them. It means where the 'impossible' is within the realm of what the human body can do, there are Australians who believe that they can do it - and who have succeeded often enough to make us wonder if anything is impossible to them. It means they have never lost a match - particularly a Test match - until the last run is scored or their last wicket down. — John Arlott

I had failed the psychological profiling of a terrorist. The central committee of the Red Brigades had judged me too single-minded and too opinionated to become a good terrorist. — Loretta Napoleoni

Research has shown that we virtually become like the average of the five people we spend the most time with. Who you spend your time with may be the single most determining factor in the person you become and in your quality of life. If you are surrounded with lazy, weak-minded, excuse-making people, you'll inevitably become like them. Spend time with positive, successful achievers and inevitably their attitudes and successful habits will reflect on you. You'll become more and more like them. — Hal Elrod

I sympathize the first, the direct and single-minded attack [Red Revolution]. I believe it to have been necessary and inevitable in Russia. It may someday be inevitable in this country [United States of America]. I am not seriously alarmed by the sufferings of the creditor class, the troubles which the church is bound to encounter, the restrictions on certain kinds of freedom which must result, nor even by the bloodshed of the transition period. A better economic order is worth a little bloodshed. — Stuart Chase

The actor Richard Burton once wrote an article for the New York Times about his experience playing the role of Winston Churchill in a television drama:
"In the course of preparing myself ... I realized afresh that I hate Churchill and all of his kind. I hate them virulently. They have stalked down the corridors of endless power all through history ... What man of sanity would say on hearing of the atrocities committed by the Japanese against British and Anzac prisoners of war, 'We shall wipe them out, everyone of them, men, women, and children. There shall not be a Japanese left on the face of the earth? Such simple
minded cravings for revenge leave me with a horrified but reluctant awe for such single
minded and merciless ferocity."
— Richard Francis Burton

Britain, along with the U.S.A., is war weary, and after the travesty of Iraq and Afghanistan, has grave misgivings in any future involvement in the Middle East. The ghost of Tony Blair and his single-minded determination to attack Iraq, at any cost, has cast a long shadow over British politics. The British public have a long collective memory. — Paul Conroy

You have to be single minded, drive only for one thing on which you have decided. And if it looks as if you might be getting there, all kinds of people, including some you thought were your loyal friends will suddenly show up ... to trip you, blacken you, and break your spirit. — John R Noe

The vocational approach at NOCCA (New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts) helps build grit in students. It teaches them how to be single-minded in pursuit of a goal, to sacrifice for the sake of a passion. The teachers demand hard work from their kids because they know, from personal experience, that creative success requires nothing less. — Jonah Lehrer

Not only do we as individuals get locked into single-minded views, but we also reinforce these views for each other until the culture itself suffers the same mindlessness. — Ellen Langer

To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

McNamara was like a drill, relentlessly boring in on the assembly plants. No one worked as hard as he did, no one was as single-minded. Every day there was some new regulation, some new instrument of control. "I can't deal with him," Wiesmyer would tell friends. "This guy is crazy. It's not about cars - I can deal with cars. It's about numbers. Do you know what this guy does for a vacation? He climbs mountains. How can you deal with a guy who on his time off flies to some God-forsaken place and then climbs a mountain? You know, he pays good money to do that. — David Halberstam

I was single-minded on what I wanted to do since I was like nine or ten. — Sam Elliott

Art itself may be defined as a single minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect. — Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Any time I have seen someone accomplishing something magnificent, they have been a monomaniac with a mission. A single-minded individual with a passion. — Peter Drucker

If a woman has talent she'll get there. But she has to be willing to fight ... to have tremendous determination and be single-minded about it. — Patricia Lovell

Tomorrow these villagers would carry their secret icons into the church without any priest and light the candles themselves, moving together in single-minded grace. Like the school of the fish, so driven to righteousness they could flout the law, declare the safety of their souls, then go home and destroy the evidence. — Barbara Kingsolver

Painters must want to paint above all else. If the artist in front of the canvas begins to wonder how much he will sell it for, or what the critics will think of it, he won't be able to pursue original avenues. Creative achievements depend on single-minded immersion. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The life-tree of practice is single-minded application. — Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye

Single minded pursuit of the kingdom of God and his righteousness results in having everlasting life — Sunday Adelaja

To feel myself. Light as a feather free as a bird, though long since fit to be shot down. Unleash the dog with no sense of shame. Become this or that. Awaken the dead. Wear my pal Baldander's rags for a change. Lose my way on a single-minded quest. — Gunter Grass

Some believe that we will eventually sink back to the more simple-minded creatures which we evolved out of and the planet will bring another mind forward." "Isn't that the opposite of evolution?" "Only from a single-species perspective. A planet's life is paramount. It is such a fragile rare event, it should be treasured and nurtured for the potential it brings forth. If that means abdicating our physical dominance for our successors, then that is what we will accept. Such a time is a long way in our future. In terms of evolution, we have only just begun such a journey. — Peter F. Hamilton

Life roars at us when it wants or needs us to change. Ultimately, change means trans formation, a shifting from one form to another that involves the magic of creation. The trouble with entrenched oppositions is that each side becomes increasingly one-sided and single minded and unable to grow or meaningfully change. In the blindness of fear and the willfulness of abstract beliefs, people forget or reject the unseen yet essential unity that underlies all the oppositions in life. — Michael Meade

He fucks with the single-minded devotion of a dying man hunting God. — Karen Marie Moning

From heat and protons, to hearts, central nervous systems, minds and cluster bombs, this is Creation's single compulsion, its one and only passion; a relentless, arguably reckless passage from a state of ancestral simplicity to contemporary complexity, where complexity - and the specialisation it affords - parents a wretched and forever diversifying family of more devoted fears and faithful anxieties, more pervasive ailments and skilful parasites, more virulent toxins, more capable diseases, and more affectionate expressions of pain, ruin, psychosis and loss. In the simplest possible statement: Creation is a vast entanglement apparatus - a complexity machine - whose single-minded mindless state of employment is geared entirely towards a greater potency and efficiency in the delivery and experience of misery and confusion, not harmony and peaceful accord. — John Zande

You know that feeling when you're suddenly startled out of a deep sleep, and you're in that hazy middle world where you're not sure what's real - like maybe you actually could be chasing after an ice cream truck wearing only fishing waders and a canary yellow bridesmaid's dress, or you're just one answer away from winning a year's supply of adult diapers on a Japanese game show?
- SINGLE-MINDED — Lisa Daily

Sachin was so focused. He never looked like getting out. He was batting with single-minded devotion. It was truly remarkable. It was a lesson. — Martina Navratilova

This is what is meant by being single-minded. If you choose something, choose it with all your might, with all your heart. Don't be faint-hearted. Keep going! Keep moving toward it. Be determined. — Neale Donald Walsch

The general public have a warped view of the speed at which an investigation proceeds. They like to imagine tense conversations going on behind the venetian blinds and unshaven, but ruggedly handsome, detectives working themselves with single-minded devotion into the bottle and marital breakdown. The truth is that at the end of the day, unless you've generated some sort of lead, you go home and get on with the important things in life - like drinking and sleeping, and if you're lucky, a relationship with the gender and sexual orientation of your choice. — Ben Aaronovitch

Whenever you do any one thing intensely over a period of time you have to give up other lives you could be living. You have to have a real single-minded kind of tunnel vision if you want to get anything significant accomplished. Especially if the desire is not to be a businessman, but to be a creative person. — Steve Jobs

He'd always loved this: a woman's elemental effect on him, as a man. He used to live for these moments of raw, instinctual attraction. When a source of celestial-grade femininity wandered into the room, and his internal compass recalibrated. It was a sublime shift from internal chaos to single-minded determination. The difference between Ye gods, what next? and ...
Her. I'll take her. — Tessa Dare

We enter into solitude first of all to meet our Lord and to be with Him and Him alone. Only in the context of grace can we face our sin; only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds; only with a single-minded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature. Solitude is a place where Christ remodels us in his own image and frees us from the victimizing compulsions of the world. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Suddenly I'm no longer aware of the people around us, just the feel and the warmth and the scent of Daniel, and the way he's holding me near to him — Lisa Daily

Not to let what one is already holding harm what one is about to receive is called being "empty."12 The heart is born and has awareness. With awareness, there comes awareness of differences. These differences are known at the same time, and when they are known at the same time, this is to be two-fold. Yet, there is what is called being (180) "single-minded." Not to let one idea harm another idea is called being "single-minded." When the heart sleeps, then it dreams. When it relaxes, then it goes about on its own. — Xun Kuang

I can't conceive of nursing babies and taking care of children and writing, too. I know there are writers that do that, but I'm too single-minded. I can't stand to be interrupted, whether I'm writing a story or dressing a child. — Ellen Gilchrist

Dance, cher?" he asks, his blue eyes playful. I nod and he pulls me gently into his arms. He's warm. We sway to the music and the gentle rocking of the boat. His hand rests on the small of my back, in that sweet spot that makes you feel feminine and protected and adored all at once. — Lisa Daily

Single-minded devotion engenders deep thought, which expresses itself in action. The Lord's Light descends on the devotee, His power awakens in him and, as a result, profound inner inquiry blossoms forth. — Anandamayi Ma

The Fates, like an absent-minded printer, seldom allow a single line to stand perfect and unmarred. — George Santayana

God, there's nothing sexier than a nice strong jawline and a movie-star-quality chin dimple. It's my own personal kryptonite.
- SINGLE-MINDED — Lisa Daily

From what I'd witnessed, Alona Dare was single minded, determined, and ruthless. If high school was a zoo, she was the lioness running the hunt on the hapless tourists who'd wandered into the wrong enclosure. — Stacey Kade

Like skateboarders, writers live by rejection; like writers, any skater worth his salt must have the single-minded tenacity of a wiener dog. — Bret Anthony Johnston

What we so admire and call "single minded dedication" was really "obsessive self-involvement". What in that exactly is admirable? — Harlan Coben

Why did you come?" Gaia asked, passing over his shirt.

"I wanted to see you," he said.

"That's all? No problem with the crims or anything?"

It seemed like so long ago that he'd left the crims to come into the village to find her. He fingered his shirt, which was all but dry. "No. Just you."

"You're awfully untalkative for a guy who came all this way to see me," she said. He glanced up again, seeing the concern in her eyes when she smiled at him. His loneliness began to thaw.

"You were amazing in there, you know," he said.

She shook her head, turning his hat in her hands. "I hope I didn't boss you around too much. I can get a little single-minded."

"Hardly at all. 'Take yer boots off and git yerself in here,'" he drawled. — Caragh M. O'Brien

Focus isn't just working with single-minded devotion to a purpose. It's also working ONLY on things that take you towards your goals. — Mani S. Sivasubramanian

The single minded ones, the monomaniacs, are the only true achievers — Peter Drucker

Empathy occurs when we suspend our single-minded focus of attention and instead adopt a double-minded foucus of attention. When our attention lapses into single focus, empathy has been turned off. When we shift our attention to dual focus empathy has been turned on. Empathy is our ability to identify what someone else is thinking or feeling and to respond to there thought or feelings with an approriate emotion. Empathy makes the other person feel valued, enabling them to feel that their thoughts and feelings have been heard. — Simon Baron-Cohen

Is this a book club? How do they join? Do they ever pay? These are the things I ask myself when I sit here alone, after Tyndall or Lapin or Fedorov has left. Tyndall is probably the weirdest, but they're all pretty weird: all graying, single-minded, seemingly imported from some other time or place. There are no iPhones. There's no mention of current events or pop culture or anything, really, other than the books. I definitely think of them as a club, though I have no evidence that they know one another. Each comes in alone and never says a word about anything other than the object of his or her current, frantic fascination. — Robin Sloan

The cat, which is a solitary beast, is single minded and goes its way alone, but, the dog, like his master, is confused in his mind. — H.G.Wells

While I agree that homegrown terrorism and the jihadist threat deserve continuing attention, a single-minded approach ignores all other threats. — Bennie Thompson

When you conform to the monoculture's version of who you are and what the world is like, you lose your freedom along with your ability to be truly innovative in terms of your own life. Being able to draw on many different stories, not just the economic one, allows you to creatively and authentically meet the challenges that face you in your life. The monoculture, determinedly single-minded, insists that economic values and assumptions can be used to solve your problems, whether those problems are spiritual, political, intellectual, or relational. — F.S. Michaels

My war - and I have yet to win a decisive battle - is with the modes of thought and conditioned feelings that prevail in psychology and therefore also in the way we think and feel about our being. Of these conditions none are more tyrannical than the convictions that clamp the mind and heart into positivistic science (geneticism and computerism), economics (bottom-line capitalism), and single-minded faith (fundamentalism). — James Hillman

An objective viewpoint was beyond her; she was single-minded to a fault. — Alison Weir

He swims easily to the side of the boat and pulls himself up on the ladder, water droplets clinging to his chest and abs. Still hanging on to the rope, he brings himself effortlessly over the side of the railing and onto the deck. His khaki shorts are completely soaked through, and they hang low and loosely on his hips. I have to force myself, consciously, not to ogle him. — Lisa Daily

He smiles, his palpable charisma pulling me in like low tide. Or riptide. — Lisa Daily

Simplified living is about more than doing less. It's being who God called us to be, with a wholehearted, single-minded focus. It's walking away from innumerable lesser opportunities in favor of the few to which we've been called and for which we've been created. — Bill Hybels

At the beginning of his administration, Obama homed right in on Medicare, which he wanted to fix by reducing the overall cost of health care in this country. He risked everything - some would claim he lost everything - by being so single-minded. — Gail Collins

By massed practice we mean the single-minded, rapid-fire repetition of something you're trying to burn into memory, the "practice-practice-practice" of conventional wisdom. Cramming for exams is an example. Rereading and massed practice give rise to feelings of fluency that are taken to be signs of mastery, but for true mastery or durability these strategies are largely a waste of time. — Peter C. Brown

I've always noticed that nobody can be single-minded who isn't narrow-minded; and I think it likely that people who aren't so cocksure what they want to do with themselves, hesitate because they have a great deal more to deal with. A nature rich in fine and complex possibilities takes more time to dispose of itself, but when it does, the world's beauty is the gainer. — Dorothy Canfield Fisher

'Bad Taste' was - it was, in many respects, my sort of, my, I guess, my single-minded desire to want to break into the film industry when New Zealand didn't really have a film industry to break into. — Peter Jackson

Left, Right. Steady effort. This is familiar. Most accomplishment is like this . . . Not the result of decisive actions, or moments of truth.

No, persistence is the source of the best of what we do, of real change. Even, single-minded persistence. — Paul Chadwick

If you're not aware of it yet, madam, I'm rather single-minded in my pursuits. You're the woman I want, and I'll not be satisfied until I have you."
"Christopher, Christopher," she groaned. "When will you ever accept the fact that I'm a married woman?"
"Only when I can claim you as my wife."
-Christopher & Erienne — Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

What ultimately got me through was my single-minded determination, voiced aloud to myself and recorded in my diary, to discover the causes of my blindness and never to repeat them. Fearlessly pursuing insight was my badge of honor, my route back to self-respect. — Jeanne Safer

Those who know Bertram Wooster best are aware that he is a man of sudden, strong enthusiasms and that, when in the grip of one of these, he becomes a remorseless machine - tense, absorbed, single-minded. — P.G. Wodehouse

Single-minded, determined, and intelligent organizational talent probably can create an effective army from any group of men. — Trevor N. Dupuy

The truth of an orchestra is heard when they try to find their common notes before the show. All those strings and tubes and odd plunking things straining in different directions; an orchestra is merely a mob of single-minded maniacs who every so often condescend to work together, and then, mostly, they soar - they ascend - they give us wings.

Then they finish and bow and grumble and stomp off to their grotty little hovels muttering to themselves. Honestly, music is a miracle. You have no idea. — Kelly Gardiner

Why is the Rockefeller Commission so Single-Minded About a Lone Assassin in the Kennedy Case?, — Cyril Wecht

Andy Stasiuk was a newsman of the old school of front-page journalism - tough, knowledgeable, cynical, single-minded and fun. He covered the news as a happy warrior in an era of cutthroat editorial competition. — Donald Newhouse

These clever, amoral, inventive, destructive men, single-minded, selfish, emotionally cool, coolly attractive. I think I preferred them to the love of Jesus. — Ian McEwan

Someone who was so single-minded of focus and so fragile of emotion. — Lizbeth Selvig

A mob is not, as is so often said, mindless. A mob is single-minded. — Teju Cole

Single-minded concentration in the direction of your dreams intensifies your desires and increases your self-confidence. — Brian Tracy

This single-minded lust between us was sacred. — Pepper Winters

You're out of your mind," she said, plopping down on the side of the bed. "For real. I don't think I've ever met anyone as single-minded as you." "You probably never will. That's just how it is. You have sex with me, the compulsion goes away, and we won't need to do it ever again, won't even have to talk to each other ever again. That's the best part." "You know, I'm sure this is your best attempt at seduction, but even with all this suave finesse, I am not going to have sex with you." He grunted. "You will. — Shay Rucker

When I first started doing the quieter, more acoustic material in Swans, there was a lot of derision and outright hatred from the audience and press, just as in the early days of Swans when we were rejected outright because of the bludgeoning, single-minded violence of the music. — Michael Gira

When a person is resolute [determined, sold out, dedicated, single-minded] in his faith and recognizes God's Presence everywhere, he is protected from all sides. — Gloria Copeland

The fighter is to be always single-minded with one object in view: to fight, looking neither backward nor sidewise. To go straight forward in order to crush the enemy is all that is necessary for him. — D.T. Suzuki

In the foundation and development of a successful enterprise there must be a single-minded pursuit of financial profit. — C. Northcote Parkinson

Birds and periodic blood.
Old recapitulations.
The fox, panting, fire-eyed,
gone to earth in my chest.
How beautiful we are,
he and I, with our auburn
pelts, our trails of blood,
our miracle escapes,
our whiplash panic flogging us on
to new miracles!
They've supplied us with pills
for bleeding, pills for panic.
Wash them down the sink.
This is truth, then:
dull needle groping for the spinal fluid,
weak acid in the bottom of the cup,
foreboding, foreboding.
No one tells the truth about truth,
that it's what the fox
sees from his scuffled burrow:
dull-jawed, onrushing
killer, being that
inanely single-minded
will have our skins at last. — Adrienne Rich

Textures, places, and personalities are important on the soul path, which feels more like an initiation into the multiplicity of life than a single-minded assault upon enlightenment. As the soul makes its unsteady way, delayed by obstacles and distracted by all kinds of charms, aimlessness is not overcome. The wish for progress may have to be set aside. — Thomas Moore

But there she was, standing next to his mother, so beautiful, so radiant that he could not see anyone else.
Suddenly the rest of the world seemed like such a chore. He didn't want to be here at this dance, with people he didn't want to talk to and messages he didn't particularly wish to deliver. He didn't want to dance with young ladies he didn't know, and he didn't want to make polite conversation with people he did. He just wanted Billie, and he wanted her all to himself.
He forgot about Tallywhite. He forgot about pease, porridge, and pudding, and he stalked across the room with such single-minded purpose that the crowds seemed to melt from his path.
And somehow, amazingly, the rest of the world had not yet noticed her. She was so beautiful, so uncommonly alive and real in this room full of waxen dolls. She would not go undiscovered for long.
But not yet. Soon he would have to fight the throngs of eager young gentlemen, but for now, she was still his alone. — Julia Quinn

Most of the heroes we remember we remember only because they won. To win you must be ruthless. Single-minded ... which was why he had no friends just admirers. — David Gemmell

The surest way of achieving your goal is through the single-minded pursuit of simple actions. — Helmuth Von Moltke The Elder

From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step. — Friedrich Hayek

No chemical compound in the atmosphere has a worse reputation than CO2, thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control and energy production. The incredible list of supposed horrors that increasing carbon dioxide will bring the world is pure belief disguised as science. — William Happer

To cook is not just to prepare food for someone or for yourself; it is to express your sincerity. So when you cook you should express yourself in your activity in the kitchen. You should allow yourself plenty of time; you should work on it with nothing in your mind, and without expecting anything. You should just cook! — Shunryu Suzuki

Love is not the doe-eyed virgin you believe her to be. Love is always hungry. Love is always wanting. Love is not rational. Love does not compromise. And Love is not happy simply possessing you. It wants to own you. Control you. Be you. The first murder was because of love. And I promise you that the last of your kind will die for it. "Love is the single-minded hunter who consumes its prey, sucking it of all it's worth and then seeks another. Love is only happy when you are on your knees, begging it to stay. And love will walk away, leaving you to your self pity just to feel your need. "Love — R.E. Vance

For a long time we sit there not saying anything, enjoying the quiet of the bay and the occasional steamy knee bump. — Lisa Daily

I was brought up by a single mom in a poor town in Arkansas and while some aspects of small-town life were really positive - like the fact that everyone there is really sweet and hospitable - there is also this close-minded mentality, and that naturally made me want to rebel. — Beth Ditto

Single-minded to the point of recklessness — Ann Brashares