Time & Perspective Quote by Anthony J. D'Angelo

D'Angelo frames the future less as a destination than as a predator: either you run toward it or it runs you down. The line works because it steals the language of self-help (agency, optimism) and splices it to a threat. That violence is the point. It turns “change” from an abstract concept into a physical force with momentum, something you can’t negotiate with, only match.

The intent is motivational, but the subtext is anxiety management. By casting the future as inevitable and fast, D'Angelo legitimizes a modern, low-grade panic many people already feel: the sense that careers, technologies, and cultural norms update faster than humans can metabolize. The quote doesn’t argue that change is good; it argues that passivity is costly. You’re invited to see preparation and curiosity not as virtuous traits but as survival tactics.

Context matters here. As a late-20th-century American author writing in the era of corporate reengineering, globalization, and then the internet’s acceleration, D'Angelo is speaking to an audience being told, repeatedly, to “adapt” or become obsolete. The runner is the worker, the student, the parent trying to keep up with a shifting economy and an information firehose. Even the grammar tightens the screw: “or it’s going to run you down” is colloquial, certain, and immediate. No maybes, no consolation prizes.

It’s effective because it offers a clean binary in a messy world. That’s also its limitation: the future isn’t one lane, and not everyone starts the race with the same shoes.