All 29 Uses of
focus
in
Atlas Shrugged
- Few people liked her face: the face was too cold, the eyes too intense; nothing could ever lend her the charm of a soft focus.†
Chpt 1.1 (definition 1)
- He had to say it; words were a lens to focus one's mind, and he could not use words for anything else tonight.†
Chpt 1.2 (definition 1)
- "Look, bud," said Bertram Scudder, his eyeballs focused approximately in the direction of Philip, "whether you like it or not, the Equalization of Opportunity Bill represents a great step forward."
Chpt 1.6 (definition 1)focused = looking
- Rearden sat without moving, the muscles of his cheeks pulled tight; but his glance was indifferent, focused only by the faint pull of morbid curiosity.
Chpt 1.7 (definition 1)focused = concentrating on the matter at hand
- His effort was focused on keeping his voice quiet; he could not control his words.
Chpt 1.7 (definition 1) *focused = concentrating
- He waited, pressed against the secretary's desk, as if seeking protection; his eyes had the unfocused look of panic.†
Chpt 1.8 (definition 1)
- He stood in the middle of her living room, looking slowly around him; this was her apartment, the one place in the city that had been the focus of two years of his torment, as the place he could not think about and did, the place he could not enter-and was now entering with the casual, unannounced right of an owner.†
Chpt 1.9 (definition 1)
- She smiled: it was the hood that had been the immovable point in her field of vision, while the earth had gone by, it was the hood that had been the center, the focus, the security in a blurred, dissolving world …. the hood before her and Rearden's hands on the wheel by her side …. she smiled, thinking that she was satisfied to let this be the shape of her world.†
Chpt 1.9 (definition 1)
- Helplessness was a strange experience, new to her; she had never found it hard to face things and make decisions; but she was not dealing with things-this was a fog without shapes or definitions, in which something kept forming and shifting before it could be seen, like semi-clots in a not-quite-liquid-it was as if her eyes were reduced to side-vision and she were sensing blurs of disaster coiling toward her, but she could not move her glance, she had no glance to move and focus.†
Chpt 1.10 (definition 1)
- A pointless chuckle kept breaking his voice when he spoke, the sound of a static, unfocused malevolence, "It went bust, the great factory.†
Chpt 1.10 (definition 1)
- It was not Taggart Transcontinental that stood as the focus of terror in her mind, it was not the thought of Hank Rearden tied to a rack pulled in opposite directions-it was Ellis Wyatt.†
Chpt 1.10 (definition 1)
- His mind was still focused on the crowd in the ballroom downstairs and on two figures in that crowd.
Chpt 2.3 (definition 1)focused = concentrating
- "It was a difficult decision to make," he said, with a moist, unfocused look of righteousness, to the panic-stricken president of the Atlantic Southern, "but I weighed the fact that you're a rich corporation, while the people of Germany are in a state of unspeakable misery.†
Chpt 2.5 (definition 1)
- The glaring arc lights seemed to pick it out of the mountains, to isolate and focus it, like a small stage on which every movement was naked to the sight of the unseen tiers rising in the vast, encircling night.†
Chpt 2.5 (definition 1)
- He was looking at a blank face and an unfocused glance of terror.†
Chpt 2.5 (definition 1)
- Taggart's eyes seemed to focus, and he said, his voice louder, "Yes, of course.†
Chpt 2.6 (definition 1)
- He was looking straight at the policeman, but he felt as if the focus of his eyes had switched to his side vision, and what he saw most clearly was Danneskjold's face watching him with no expression, with no line's, no muscle's worth of feeling.
Chpt 2.7 (definition 2) *focus = where attention is concentrated
- But under it, he had felt a sneaking little hope, swift and furtive like the course of a cockroach: if that threat took form, it would solve everything, save him from decision, save him from signing the letter …. he would not be President of Taggart Transcontinental any longer, but neither would anyone else …. neither would anyone else…… He sat, looking down at his desk, keeping his eyes and his mind out of focus.†
Chpt 2.8 (definition 3) *
- Ladies and gentlemen, you have been chosen-in recognition of your distinguished public service and social loyalty-to witness the unveiling of a scientific achievement of such tremendous importance, such staggering scope, such epoch-making possibilities that up to this moment it has been known only to a very few and only as Project X. Dr. Stadler focused his field glasses on the only thing in sight-on the blotch of the distant farm.†
Chpt 3.3 (definition 1)
- In the instant when he focused his lens, a goat was pulling at its chain, reaching placidly for a tall, dry thistle.
Chpt 3.3 (definition 1)focused = concentrated
- She saw his bleary brown eyes focus upon her without expression.†
Chpt 3.3 (definition 1)
- His mother dragged her eyes into focus again and whispered, "Don't abandon us, Henry."
Chpt 3.6 (definition 3)focus = a state where something has come into view or can be seen clearly
- If to choose a person as the constant center of one's concern, as the focus of one's view of life, was to love-he thought-then it was true that she loved him; but if, to him, love was a celebration of one's self and of existence-then, to the self-haters and life-haters, the pursuit of destruction was the only form and equivalent of love.†
Chpt 3.6 (definition 1)
- A radio receiver was playing a program of military marches broadcast from another studio, half-drowning the fragments of nervous voices, of hastily aimless steps, of screeching machinery being pulled to focus upon the drawing-room set.†
Chpt 3.7 (definition 1)
- It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment-on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict 'It is.'†
Chpt 3.7 (definition 3)
- Empty, hopeless, unfocused faces were becoming more apparent in the streets of the cities, but no one could read their meaning.†
Chpt 3.8 (definition 1)
- It took some time before Cuffy Meigs' attention and bleary brown eyes could be drawn to focus on the person of Dr. Stadler.†
Chpt 3.9 (definition 1)
- Perhaps-this was the thought most fiercely resisted and most deeply buried at the bottom of his watchers sensations, the thought they knew only as a diffused hatred and an unfocused terror-perhaps it was the absence of such statues from the modern world that had transformed a generator into an octopus and brought a body such as his into its tentacles.†
Chpt 3.9 (definition 1)
- He was a tall, emaciated man, with jerky movements, a sallow face and the restless, unfocused eyes of a drug addict.†
Chpt 3.10 (definition 1)
Definitions:
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(1) (focus as in: Turn your focus to question #2.) verb: to concentrate, look at, or pay attention to
noun: the act of concentration, or the ability to concentrate
(to concentrate is to direct attention or effort towards a single thing)
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(2) (focus as in: The focus of our study is...) where attention is concentrated or directed
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(3) (focus as in: bring into focus; or out of focus) a state where something has come into view or can be seen clearly; or an adjustment made to permit a clear view