At the age of 40, having spent a decade writing two novels, The Twenty-Seventh City and Strong Motion, both of which were well-reviewed and little-sold, he resigned himself to a certain amount of cultural irrelevance, which he attributed not to any failing in himself, but to a failing in the culture.
Wide receiver Devin Aromashodu found himself with a seat on the bench after failing to exert himself on a couple of routes the previous week.
If he doesn't he could well find himself failing to reach the potential he clearly has, yet fails to utilise.
Instead, it was Lane – lovely, quiet, gentle, horribly misunderstood and underappreciated Lane – who hanged himself on the back of his office door after failing to kill himself in a Jaguar.
For that matter, sometimes the initiator of the game may merely go through the motions of playing it himself, failing to imagine the things he is nominally called on to imagine by make-believe signals he himself emits, in which case he merely alludes to a game that even he doesn't bother to play.
Critics have attacked Mr. McCain for failing to distance himself enough from Mr. Hagee.
At best an indifferent student, he was expelled from McBurney after two years for failing to apply himself.
He knocked in 120 runs in 1999, but last season found himself failing to sustain rallies -- or sometimes ending them.
One local businessman left before half-time after failing to distract himself sufficiently from the threat of shelling.
Jon Stewart, a satirical television pundit, ribs the new president for failing to distinguish himself from Mr Bush as quickly and completely as Mr Stewart would like him to.
