Can't have no hope at all

"Sometimes you have an instinct...

You don’t even know if its for real

You are looking for it so bad

Can’t have no hope at all"

A few lines that the character Joe Gould addresses to Mae Braddock in the film Cinderella Man. The movie based on a real story - a true, inspiring story, as real as one could get. Gould is boxer Jim Braddock's manager, Mae is Braddock's wife. Braddock had gone on hard times during Depression and had just got a second chance in the boxing ring. Gould wants him to get back, but Mae is afraid that her husband will get badly hurt and berates Gould for encouraging him. Thats the context in which Gould says the above lines...even Gould has fallen on bad times and has sold his last piece of furniture for Jim's training.

Sometimes something that you see or hear resonates strongly with what you are facing in life, or have experienced earlier...the contexts may be different...but isnt that the beauty of words. Each of us would have once upon a time read a self help book - Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale or somebody else...the book is the same, the words are the same and yet many a times they have given strength and hope to people facing totally different situations or problems in life.

There's one more film dialogue which like sticks in my mind, whenever I am beset with doubts, things are not going my way and I seek inspiration.

Film - The Last Samurai
Dialgoue between Katsumoto (Ken Wattanbe) and Cap. Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise)

Algren is talking of how their heavily outnumbered traditional Samurai force with its medieval weapons can engage in battle against the well trained Imperial Japanese Army equipped with modern weapons. And he suggests a plausible strategy. Katsumoto who had resigned himself to an honorable death on battlefield is unable to believe that Algren is seriously planning an attempt to turn tables over.

Katsumoto - You think ..a man can change his Destiny?
Algren (after some thought) - Yeah.. a man does what he can until his Destiny is revealed