Bill Bryson

I once joked in a book that there are three things you can't do in life. You can't beat the phone company, you can't make a waiter see you until he is ready to see you, and you can't go home again. Since the spring of 1995, I have been quietly, even gamely, reassessing point number three.

American Writer

H. W. Brands

Every year, I have my graduate students read the great works of history, from classical times to the present. They gamely tackle Tacitus, ponder Plutarch, plow through Gibbon. Then they get to Thomas Carlyle and feel like Dorothy when she touched down in Technicolor Oz.

American Historian

Implies a positive judgment of someone's behavior facing difficulties.

Positive Connotation

Shows emotional or mental strength, not just physical.

Psychological Strength

Using 'gamely' often suggests that the speaker admires the person facing hardship.

Admiration Implied

 and one of our military commanders got up to read that letter and one of the other kids said, "Mr. Hunter, let's ask -- there's a parent over there." There was a parent visiting that day, just sitting in the back of the room. "Let's ask that mom to read the letter. It'll be more realer if she reads it." So we did, we asked her, and she gamely picked up the letter.

Gamely