Quotes about catch (763 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Love is a curious mixture of opposites, a blend of extreme selfishness and total devotion. A paradox! Besides which, love, everybody is always talking about love, love, but love isn't something you choose, you catch it like a disease, you get trapped in it, like a disaster.”

Amos Oz book A Tale of Love and Darkness

Source: A Tale of Love and Darkness

Love , Disease , Selfishness

“It's easy to fall in love. The hard part is finding someone to catch you.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

love , Relationship , Cute , Romantic

“Ideas are like fish.
If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

Introduction, p. 1
Catching the Big Fish (2006)
Source: Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity
Context: Ideas are like fish.
If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper.
Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They're huge and abstract. And they're very beautiful.

Idea , Fish , Water

“Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?”

Tennessee Williams The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore

Source: The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore

Life , Memory

“The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Source: P.S. I Love You

Courageous , Success , Life , Dreams

“If you catch me saying ‘I am a serious actor,’ I beg you to slap me.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

“Love meant jumping off a cliff and trusting that a certain person would be there to catch you at the bottom.”

Jodi Picoult book Second Glance

Source: Second Glance

Romantic , Wedding , Love , Personality

“The Rose does not preen herself to catch my eye. She blooms because she blooms. A saint is a saint until he knows he is one.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: One Minute Wisdom

“If you want to catch beasts you don't see every day,
You have to go places quite out of the way,
You have to go places no others can get to.
You have to get cold and you have too get wet, too.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Way

“One does not meet oneself until one catches the reflection from an eye other than human.”

Loren Eiseley (1907–1977) US philosopher (1907-1977)

“I'm telling you
On what I feel
Gonna catch your mind
Dont shoot to kill
Well, they say the sky's the limit,
And to me that's really true,
But, my friend you have seen nothing,
Just wait 'til I get through.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Bad (1987)

Feeling , Waiting

“I think Terrell will catch hell at the sound of the bell.
He's going around saying that he's a championship-fighter,
but when he meets me he fall 20 pound lighter.
He thinks that he's the real heavy weight champ
but when he meets me, he'll just be a tramp
Now I'm not sayin' just to be funny, but I'm fightin' Ernie because he needs the money.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

About Ernie Terrell before their February 1967 boxing match, - ( YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVZYo2MYmfg
Source: https://books.google.ca/books?id=6ClZDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=I+think+Terrell+will+catch+hell+at+the+sound+of+the+bell&source=bl&ots=2atsVuDXae&sig=ACfU3U0qSka952BOrSsGqAg13ji8vvdxPw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiK1sa854jvAhWY_J4KHe0xAf0Q6AEwEnoECAQQAw#v=onepage&q=I%20think%20Terrell%20will%20catch%20hell%20at%20the%20sound%20of%20the%20bell&f=false Ali: The Official Portrait of "The Greatest" of All Time

Money , Hell , Thinking

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but the attribution cannot be verified. The quote should not be regarded as authentic. — Twainquotes http://www.twainquotes.com/Discovery.html
Actually from the 1990 book P. S. I Love You' https://books.google.com/books?id=5OORXU6rlGIC&q=bowlines#v=onepage&q=bowlines&f=false' by H. Jackson Brown.
Misattributed

Courageous , Success , Life , Dreams

“Not only were we practicing, we were nervous rehearsing, because he would sit in a chair with a belt in his hand, and if you didn't do it the right way, he would tear you up. Really get you…We were terrified of him. So terrified, I can't tell you. I don't think he realized how scared…scared…I mean SCARED. So scared that I would regurgitate. (with emphasis) Mmm-hmm. (reporter asks Michael what caused the reaction) His presence, just seeing him…And I was so fast, he wouldn't catch me half the time, but when he did, oh my God, it was bad.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On his father & the whippings he & his brothers would receive from him
Living with Michael Jackson (2002)

God , Way , Thinking , Tear

“When you meet the one among the millions, when amid millions of years, across the borderless wastes of time, you happen to catch him or her, neither a step too early nor a step too late, what else is there to do except to ask softly: "So you're here, too?"”

Eileen Chang (1920–1995) Chinese writer and screenwriter

10. "Love" (p. 79)
Liuyan [《流言》] (1968)

Time

“When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases -- bestial, atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder -- one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved, as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to political conformity.”

George Orwell book Politics and the English Language

Politics and the English Language (1946)

People , World , Feeling , Light

“If I have to 'catch' a man to get a husband, I don't want one.”

Tamora Pierce book Shatterglass

Source: Shatterglass

“What did I tell you about Mister Safety Catch?' said Vimes weakly.
When Mister Safety Catch Is Not On, Mister Crossbow Is Not Your Friend,' recited Detritus, saluting.”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

“Insanity is catching.”

Terry Pratchett book Making Money

Source: Making Money

“When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them--then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are far apart.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“To "catch" a husband is an art; to "hold" him is a job.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Bk. 2, part 5, Ch. 1: The Married Woman, p. 468
Source: The Second Sex (1949)

Art

“Pray to catch the bus, then run as fast as you can.”

Julia Cameron book The Artist's Way

Source: The Artist's Way

“Sometimes, when you catch someone unaware at just the right time and in just the right light, you can catch sight of what they will be.”

Jennifer Donnelly A Northern Light

Source: A Northern Light

Light , Time

“… you must always be yourself, and do things at your own pace. Someday, you'll catch up.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

“The Play's the Thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“Ask yourself a question: Is my attitude worth catching?”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

Question

“Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again.”

William Shakespeare Othello

Source: Othello

Love , Soul

“I'm very hard to catch," says Rue. "And if they can't catch me, they can't kill me. So don't count me out.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Variant: I'm hard to catch. If they can't catch me they cant kill me. So don't count me out.
Source: The Hunger Games

“Hester, in the dark conclusion of Hawthorne's brooding novel, reassumes the Puritan mantle…. Hawthorne thus captures the catch-22 of feminism: the very woman who is able to envision a new order of living is, by the same token, unable, since the passion that enables her also adulterates her in the eyes of the Puritans. Released from goodness, she is imprisoned in badness, within the framework of the puritanical order. But her mind is free to question the order.”

Carol Gilligan (1936) American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist

Source: Joining the Resistance

Question , Passion

“When Mister Safety Catch Is Not On, Mister Crossbow Is Not Your Friend.”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

“Oh! I don't think I would like to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Thinking

“Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backward.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Variant: Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backwards.

Wise , Wedding , Love , Star

“I sighed and stared off without any particular focus. "I miss him so much."
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Will it ever get better?"
The question seemed to catch her by surprise. "I… I don't know.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Question

“I meet a third man he's an old man he trips in the street he falls and I help him up, walk him to the curb. He shakes my hand says keep the faith, young man. I ask him what he means, he says keep running and don't let them catch you.”

James Frey My Friend Leonard

Source: My Friend Leonard

Faith , Help

“We love each other like matches in the dark. We don't talk, we catch fire instead”

Mathias Malzieu book La Mécanique du cœur

Source: La Mécanique du cœur

Love

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

Lewis Carroll book Through the Looking-Glass

Source: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

Bird

“A child's spirit is like a child, you cannot catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back.”

Arthur Miller The Crucible

Rebecca Nurse
Source: The Crucible (1953)

Love

“Try to discover who I am from my choice of words and colors, as attentive people like yourselves might examine footprints to catch a thief.”

Orhan Pamuk (1952) Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient

Source: My Name is Red

People , Color

“What is this thing called life? I believe
That the earth and the stars too, and the whole glittering universe, and rocks on the mountains have life,
Only we do not call it so--I speak of the life
That oxidizes fats and proteins and carbo-
Hydrates to live on, and from that chemical energy
Makes pleasure and pain, wonder, love, adoration, hatred and terror: how do these things grow
From a chemical reaction?
I think they were here already, I think the rocks
And the earth and the other planets, and the stars and the galaxies
have their various consciousness, all things are conscious;
But the nerves of an animal, the nerves and brain
Bring it to focus; the nerves and brain are like a burning-glass
To concentrate the heat and make it catch fire:
It seems to us martyrs hotter than the blazing hearth
From which it came. So we scream and laugh, clamorous animals
Born howling to die groaning: the old stones in the dooryard
Prefer silence; but those and all things have their own awareness,
As the cells of a man have; they feel and feed and influence each other, each unto all,
Like the cells of a man's body making one being,
They make one being, one consciousness, one life, one God.”

Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) American poet

Source: The Selected Poetry

Love , Life , God , Pain

“Self-knowledge — the bitterest knowledge of all and also the kind we cultivate least: what is the use of catching ourselves out, morning to night, in the act of illusion, pitilessly tracing each act back to its root, and losing case after case before our own tribunal?”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Knowledge , Night

“If you catch him, just give me four seconds with Saddam Hussein.”

Bruce Willis (1955) American actor, producer, and musician

Bruce Willis during a visit to the 101st Airborne Division in northern Iraq, September 25, 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3141942.stm

“I do not take any credit to my better-balanced head because I never went crazy on Presbyterianism. We go too slow for that. You never see us ranting and shouting and tearing up the ground, You never heard of a Presbyterian going crazy on religion. Notice us, and you will see how we do. We get up of a Sunday morning and put on the best harness we have got and trip cheerfully down town; we subside into solemnity and enter the church; we stand up and duck our heads and bear down on a hymn book propped on the pew in front when the minister prays; we stand up again while our hired choir are singing, and look in the hymn book and check off the verses to see that they don't shirk any of the stanzas; we sit silent and grave while the minister is preaching, and count the waterfalls and bonnets furtively, and catch flies; we grab our hats and bonnets when the benediction is begun; when it is finished, we shove, so to speak. No frenzy, no fanaticism --no skirmishing; everything perfectly serene. You never see any of us Presbyterians getting in a sweat about religion and trying to massacre the neighbors. Let us all be content with the tried and safe old regular religions, and take no chances on wildcat.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"The New Wildcat Religion"

Books , Religion , Tear , Singing

“Today, the Princess Royal has been canonized as a secular saint, for her truly admirable international work on behalf of the Save the Children Fund. Her dedication and concern are beyond doubt, but she didn't catch them like measles.”

Anne, Princess Royal (1950) daughter of Elizabeth II

Bernard Levin, "Uneasy Lies the Head", The Times, 23 January 1989.
About

Children , Princess

“Never mind… Don't cry… I will catch him again… [Stepping to the front of the stage and addressing the audience. ] If any of you should find him, would you be so very kind as to give him back to us?… We need him for our happiness, later on…”

Maurice Maeterlinck The Blue Bird

Tyltyl
The Blue Bird (1908)

Cry , Happiness

“We are all responsible. We are all complicit. White T-shirts catch the light. What matters is what we then do with that light. (The peace activists wore white t-shirts during their protests.)”

Leymah Gbowee (1972) Liberian peace activist

Interview for The Daily Beast (April 5, 2010)

Peace , Light

“Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Attributed to Marx (possibly in jest) in W. C. Privy's Original Bathroom Companion (2003).
Misattributed

Business , Fish

“1. Never give anything away for nothing. 2. Never give more than you have to (always catch the buyer hungry and always make him wait). 3. Always take back everything if you possibly can.”

William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer

On drug dealing, quoted in The Daily Telegraph (1964)

Waiting

“In my opinion, the best chance you have of catching this guy is to get a site with a fresh body and stake it out.”

Ted Bundy (1946–1989) American serial killer

1984 interview with Detective Robert Keppel (regarding the Green River Killer)

Guy , Chance

“The plea is, in a great measure, false; they had no permission to catch and enslave people who never injured them.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)

People , Falseness

“I’m not here to argue or discuss anything that we differ about, because it’s time for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem, a problem that will make you catch hell whether you’re a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist. Whether you’re educated or illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you’re going to catch hell just like I am. We’re all in the same boat and we all are going to catch the same hell from the same man. He just happens to be a white man. All of us have suffered here, in this country, political oppression at the hands of the white man, economic exploitation at the hands of the white man, and social degradation at the hands of the white man.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)

Education , Hell , Problem , Suffering

“Most men are scantily nourished on a modicum of happiness and a number of empty thoughts which life lays on their plates. They are kept in the road of life through stern necessity by elemental duties which they cannot avoid.
Again and again their will-to-live becomes, as it were, intoxicated: spring sunshine, opening flowers, moving clouds, waving fields of grain — all affect it. The manifold will-to-live, which is known to us in the splendid phenomena in which it clothes itself, grasps at their personal wills. They would fain join their shouts to the mighty symphony which is proceeding all around them. The world seem beauteous…but the intoxication passes. Dreadful discords only allow them to hear a confused noise, as before, where they had thought to catch the strains of glorious music. The beauty of nature is obscured by the suffering which they discover in every direction. And now they see again that they are driven about like shipwrecked persons on the waste of ocean, only that the boat is at one moment lifted high on the crest of the waves and a moment later sinks deep into the trough; and that now sunshine and now darkening clouds lie on the surface of the water.
And now they would fain persuade themselves that land lies on the horizon toward which they are driven. Their will-to-live befools their intellect so that it makes efforts to see the world as it would like to see it. It forces this intellect to show them a map which lends support to their hope of land. Once again they essay to reach the shore, until finally their arms sink exhausted for the last time and their eyes rove desperately from wave to wave. …
Thus it is with the will-to-live when it is unreflective.
But is there no way out of this dilemma? Must we either drift aimlessly through lack of reflection or sink in pessimism as the result of reflection? No. We must indeed attempt the limitless ocean, but we may set our sails and steer a determined course.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 256

Life , Men , Lie , World

“There are those who imagine that the unlucky accidents of life—life's "experiences"—are in some way useful to us. I wish I could find out how. I never know one of them to happen twice. They always change off and swap around and catch you on your inexperienced side.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"Taming the Bicycle" (1917)

Life , Way , Imagination , Change

“It is just as ridiculous to get excited & hysterical over a coming cultural change as to get excited & hysterical over one's physical aging... There is legitimate pathos about both processes; but blame & rebellion are essentially cheap, because inappropriate, emotions... It is wholly appropriate to feel a deep sadness at the coming of unknown things & the departure of those around which all our symbolic associations are entwined. All life is fundamentally & inextricably sad, with the perpetual snatching away of all the chance combinations of image & vista & mood that we become attached to, & the perpetual encroachment of the shadow of decay upon illusions of expansion & liberation which buoyed us up & spurred us on in youth. That is why I consider all jauntiness, & many forms of carelessly generalised humour, as essentially cheap & mocking, & occasionally ghastly & corpselike. Jauntiness & non-ironic humour in this world of basic & inescapable sadness are like the hysterical dances that a madman might execute on the grave of all his hopes. But if, at one extreme, intellectual poses of spurious happiness be cheap & disgusting; so at the other extreme are all gestures & fist-clenchings of rebellion equally silly & inappropriate—if not quite so overtly repulsive. All these things are ridiculous & contemptible because they are not legitimately applicable... The sole sensible way to face the cosmos & its essential sadness (an adumbration of true tragedy which no destruction of values can touch) is with manly resignation—eyes open to the real facts of perpetual frustration, & mind & sense alert to catch what little pleasure there is to be caught during one's brief instant of existence. Once we know, as a matter of course, how nature inescapably sets our freedom-adventure-expansion desires, & our symbol-&-experience-affections, definitely beyond all zones of possible fulfilment, we are in a sense fortified in advance, & able to endure the ordeal of consciousness with considerable equanimity... Life, if well filled with distracting images & activities favourable to the ego's sense of expansion, freedom, & adventurous expectancy, can be very far from gloomy—& the best way to achieve this condition is to get rid of the unnatural conceptions which make conscious evils out of impersonal and inevitable limitations... get rid of these, & of those false & unattainable standards which breed misery & mockery through their beckoning emptiness.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Frank Belknap Long (27 February 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 291
Non-Fiction, Letters, to Frank Belknap Long

Life , Pleasure , Youth , Age

“Time is a master of ceremonies who always ends up putting us in our rightful place, we advance, stop and retreat according to his orders, our mistake lies in imagination that we can catch him out.”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 115 (Vintage 2003)

Imagination , Time

“At about midnight he arrived, accompanied by six armed SS officers, and was received by my aide-de-camp, Walter Luedde-Neurath. I offered Himmler a chair and sat down at my desk, on which lay, hidden by some papers, a pistol with the safety catch off. I had never done anything of this sort in my life before, but I did not know what the outcome of this meeting might be. I handed Himmler the telegram containing my appointment. "Please read this," I said. I watched him closely. As he read, an expression of astonishment, indeed of consternation, spread over his face. All hope seemed to collapse within him. He went very pale. Finally he stood up and bowed. "Allow me," he said, "to become the second man in your state." I replied that was out of the question and that there was no way I could make any use of his services. Thus advised, he left me at about one o'clock in the morning. The showdown had taken place without force, and I felt relieved.”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

As quoted in The Decline and Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan (1997) by Hans Dollinger, p. 242

Life , Hope , Way , Question

“If someone is merely ahead of his time, it will catch up to him one day.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 8e

Time

“The problem with aging is not that it’s one damn thing after another—it’s every damn thing, all at once, all the time.
You can’t stop aging. Gene therapies and replacement organs and plastic surgery give it a good fight. But it catches up with you anyway. Get a new lung, and your heart blows a valve. Get a new heart, and your liver swells up to the size of an inflatable kiddie pool. Change out your liver, a stroke gives you a whack. That’s aging’s trump card; they still can’t replace brains.”

John Scalzi (1969) American science fiction writer

Source: Old Man’s War (2005), Chapter 1 (p. 14)

Age , Problem , Change , Time

“As much in vain, perhaps, will they search ancient history for examples of the modern Slave-Trade. Too many nations enslaved the prisoners they took in war. But to go to nations with whom there is no war, who have no way provoked, without farther design of conquest, purely to catch inoffensive people, like wild beasts, for slaves, is an hight of outrage against Humanity and Justice, that seems left by Heathen nations to be practised by pretended Christians. How shameful are all attempts to colour and excuse it!”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)

War , People , Justice , Way

“Now, those who were killed and injured here were gunned down by a single killer with a powerful assault weapon. The motives of this killer may have been different than the mass shooters in Aurora or Newtown. But the instruments of death were so similar. And now another 49 innocent people are dead; another 53 are injured; some are still fighting for their lives; some will have wounds that will last a lifetime. We can’t anticipate or catch every single deranged person that may wish to do harm to his neighbors or his friends or his coworkers or strangers. But we can do something about the amount of damage that they do. Unfortunately, our politics have conspired to make it as easy as possible for a terrorist or just a disturbed individual like those in Aurora and Newtown to buy extraordinarily powerful weapons, and they can do so legally.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

In Orlando after the Orlando nightclub shooting ([President Obama: Orlando Families' Grief Is 'Beyond Description', Time, Maya, Rhodan, June 16, 2016, September 2, 2018, http://time.com/4372190/orlando-shooting-barack-obama-joe-biden-grief/]; [‘Our hearts are broken, too’: Obama visits survivors of Orlando rampage, Katie, Zezima, Ellen, Nakashima, Mark, Berman, June 16, 2016, September 2, 2018, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/06/16/obama-looks-toward-grieving-orlando-in-visit-as-political-showdowns-expand-after-massacre/]; [After meeting with Orlando victims, Obama renews call for gun control, Gregory, Korte, USA Today, June 16, 2016, September 6, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/16/obama-biden-visit-orlando-emotional-visit-after-shooting/85973066/]).
2016, After the Orlando nightclub shooting (June 2016)

Death , People , Motivation , Fight

“O Brother! Not every sea hath pearls; not every branch will flower, nor will the nightingale sing thereon. Then, ere the nightingale of the mystic paradise repair to the garden of God, and the rays of the heavenly morning return to the Sun of Truth—make thou an effort, that haply in this dustheap of the mortal world thou mayest catch a fragrance from the everlasting garden, and live forever in the shadow of the peoples of this city. And when thou hast attained this highest station and come to this mightiest plane, then shalt thou gaze on the Beloved, and forget all else.”

Bahá'u'lláh (1817–1892) founder of the Bahá'í Faith

The Seven Valleys Of Bahá’u’lláh

God , People , Truth , World

“When I got home I mixed a stiff one and stood by the open window in the living room and sipped it and listened to the groundswell of traffic on Laurel Canyon Boulevard and looked at the glare of the big angry city hanging over the shoulder of the hills through which the boulevard had been cut. Far off the banshee wail of police or fire sirens rose and fell, never for very long completely silent. Twenty four hours a day somebody is running, somebody else is trying to catch him. Out there in the night of a thousand crimes, people were dying, being maimed, cut by flying glass, crushed against steering wheels or under heavy tires. People were being beaten, robbed, strangled, raped, and murdered. People were hungry, sick; bored, desperate with loneliness or remorse or fear, angry, cruel, feverish, shaken by sobs. A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness. It all depends on where you sit and what your own private score is. I didn't have one. I didn't care. I finished the drink and went to bed.”

Raymond Chandler book The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye (1954)

People , Fear , Home , Drink

“Watergate was thus nothing but a lure held out by the system to catch its adversaries - a simulation of scandal for regenerative ends.”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

"The Precession of Simulcra,MÖBIUS - SPIRALING NEGATIVETY
1980s, Simulacra and Simulation (1981)

“According to the old story, King Midas had long hunted wise Silenus, Dionysus' companion, without catching him. When Silenus had finally fallen into his clutches, the king asked him what was the best and most desirable thing of all for mankind. The daemon stood still, stiff and motionless, until at last, forced by the king, he gave a shrill laugh and spoke these words: 'Miserable, ephemeral race, children of hazard and hardship, why do you force me to say what it would be much more fruitful for you not to hear? The best of all things is something entirely outside your grasp: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second-best thing for you — is to die soon.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Birth of Tragedy

Es geht die alte Sage, dass König Midas lange Zeit nach dem weisen Silen, dem Begleiter des Dionysus, im Walde gejagt habe, ohne ihn zu fangen. Als er ihm endlich in die Hände gefallen ist, fragt der König, was für den Menschen das Allerbeste und Allervorzüglichste sei. Starr und unbeweglich schweigt der Dämon; bis er, durch den König gezwungen, endlich unter gellem Lachen in diese Worte ausbricht: `Elendes Eintagsgeschlecht, des Zufalls Kinder und der Mühsal, was zwingst du mich dir zu sagen, was nicht zu hören für dich das Erspriesslichste ist? Das Allerbeste ist für dich gänzlich unerreichbar: nicht geboren zu sein, nicht zu sein, nichts zu sein. Das Zweitbeste aber ist für dich - bald zu sterben.
Source: The Birth of Tragedy (1872), p. 22

Children

“When this country here was first being founded there were 13 colonies. The whites were colonized. They were fed up with this taxation without representation, so some of them stood up and said “Liberty or death.” Though I went to a white school over here in Mason, Michigan, the white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot, and George Washington -- wasn’t nothing nonviolent about old Pat or George Washington. “Liberty or death” was what brought about the freedom of whites in this country from the English. They didn’t care about the odds. Why they faced the wrath of the entire British Empire. And in those days they used to say that the British Empire was so vast and so powerful when the sun would never set on them. This is how big it was, yet these 13 little, scrawny states, tired of taxation without representation, tired of being exploited and oppressed and degraded, told that big British Empire “Liberty or death.” And here you have 22 million Afro-American black people today catching more hell than Patrick Henry ever saw. And I’m here to tell you, in case you don’t know it, that you got a new generation of black people in this country who don’t care anything whatsoever about odds. They don’t want to hear you old Uncle Tom handkerchief heads talking about the odds. No. This is a new generation. If they’re gonna draft these young black men and send them over to Korea or South Vietnam to face 800 million Chinese — if you’re not afraid of those odds, you shouldn’t be afraid of these odds.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Detroit, Michigan (12 April 1964)

Death , Men , People , Books

“If a player in the game of Deadman's Catch drops a skittle, he is obliged to suffer a succession of handicaps. First to catch using one hand, then to catch kneeling on one knee, then on two knees, then with one eye closed. If a player finally drops a catch with both eyes closed, then he is out and must take his place in the winding-sheet.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Drowning By Numbers

Game , Suffering , Success

“We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't often that we laughed, only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), Ch. 12

Feeling , Star , Fish , Weather

“Catch a falling star an’ put it in your pocket,
Never let it fade away!
Catch a falling star an’ put it in your pocket,
Save it for a rainy day!
For love may come an' tap you on the shoulder,
Some starless night!”

Paul Vance (1929) American record producer

Song "Catch a Falling Star" (1957)

Love , Star , Night

“Whether you are a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Nationalist, we all have the same problem. They don’t hang you because you’re a Baptist; they hang you ‘cause you’re black. They don’t attack me because I’m a Muslim; they attack me ‘cause I’m black. They attack all of us for the same reason -- all of us catch hell from the same enemy. We’re all in the same bag, in the same boat. We suffer political oppression, economic exploitation, and social degradation all of them from the same enemy.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Detroit, Michigan (12 April 1964)

Hell , Problem , Suffering

“If my forgeries looked as bad as the CBS documents, it would have been 'Catch Me In Two Days'.”

Frank W. Abagnale (1948) American security consultant, former confidence trickster, check forger, impostor, and escape artist

When asked his opinion of the Killian memos.
Frank Abagnale Jr. - Biography http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0007646/bio, Internet Movie Database, accessed 2008-10-12

“We allow ourselves to be blown by the winds because we do know what we want: our hearts know it, even if our thoughts are sometimes slow to follow- but in the end they do catch up with our hearts and then we think we have made a decision.”

Muhammad Asad book The Road to Mecca

Page 68.
The Road to Mecca (1954)

Thinking , Decision , Heart

“The Western approach to reality is mostly through theory, and theory begins by denying reality — to talk about reality, to go around reality, to catch anything that attracts our sense-intellect and abstract it away from reality itself. Thus philosophy begins by saying that the outside world is not a basic fact, that its existence can be doubted and that every proposition in which the reality of the outside world is affirmed is not an evident proposition but one that needs to be divided, dissected and analyzed. It is to stand consciously aside and try to square a circle.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 15 - 16

World , Reality , Sense

“Greetings from Fairbanks! This is the last you shall hear from me Wayne. Arrived here 2 days ago. It was very difficult to catch rides in the Yukon Territory, but I finally got here. Please return all mail I receive to the sender. It might be a very long time before I return South. If this adventure proves fatal and you don't ever hear from me again I want you to know your [sic] a great man. I now walk into the wild. Alex.”

Christopher McCandless (1968–1992) American hiker and explorer

In a postcard sent to Wayne Westerberg, April 27, 1992.
Source: Mary Ellen Barnes (ed.). Back to the Wild (2nd ed.). Twin Star Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0-9833955-0-8. (pp. 172-173)

Time

“Even with all our technological accomplishments and urban sophistication, we consider ourselves blessed, healed in some manner, forgiven, and for a moment transported into some other world, when we catch a passing glimpse of an animal in the wild: a deer in some woodland, a fox crossing a field, a butterfly in its dancing flight southward to its wintering region, a hawk soaring in the distant sky, a hummingbird come into our garden, fireflies signaling to each other in the evening. So we might describe the thousandfold moments when we experience our meetings with the animals in their unrestrained and undomesticated status. Such incidents as these remind us that the universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not of objects to be exploited.”

Thomas Berry (1914–2009) American priest

Source: Evening Thoughts, Chapter 3, pp. 37-38

World , Communication , Universe , Distant

“We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes. The situation that we hoped to change because it was intolerable becomes unimportant. We have not managed to surmount the obstacle, as we were absolutely determined to do, but life has taken us round it, led us past it, and then if we turn round to gaze at the remote past, we can barely catch sight of it, so imperceptible has it become.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

Nous n'arrivons pas à changer les choses selon notre désir, mais peu à peu notre désir change. La situation que nous espérions changer parce qu'elle nous était insupportable, nous devient indifférente. Nous n'avons pas pu surmonter l'obstacle, comme nous le voulions absolument, mais la vie nous l'a fait tourner, dépasser, et c'est à peine alors si en nous retournant vers le lointain du passé nous pouvons l'apercevoir, tant il est devenu imperceptible.
Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol. VI: The Sweet Cheat Gone (1925), Ch. I: "Grief and Oblivion"

Life , Hope , Change , Past

“Now that we're 18 days before the election, Mr. Severely Conservative wants you to think he was severely kidding about everything he said over the last year. He told folks he was the ideal candidate for the Tea Party, now he's telling folks, "What? Who me?" He's forgetting what his own positions are. And he's betting that you will too. I mean, he's changing up so much and backtrackin' and sidesteppin'. We've gotta name this condition that he's going though. I think it's called Romnesia. That's what it's called. I think that's what he's goin' through. Now, I'm not a medical doctor, but I do wanna go over some of the symptoms with you, because I wanna make sure nobody else catches it.You know, if you say you're for equal pay for equal work, but you keep refusing to say whether or not you'd sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work, you might have Romnesia.If you say women should have access to contraceptive care, but you support legislation that would let your employer deny you contraceptive care, you might have a case of Romnesia.If you say you'll protect a woman's right to choose, but you stand up in a primary debate and say that you'd be delighted to sign a law outlying — outlawing that right to choose in all cases — man, you definitely got Romnesia.Now, this extends to other issues. If you say earlier in the year, "I'm gonna give a tax cut to the top 1%", and in a debate you say, "I don't know anything about giving tax cuts to rich folks", you need to get a thermometer, take your temperature, because you've probably got Romnesia.If you say that you're a champion of the coal industry when, while you were governor, you stood in front of a coal plant and said "This plant will kill you" —[audience: Romnesia! ] that's some Romnesia.And if you come down with a case of Romnesia and you can't seem to remember the policies that are still on your website, or the promises you've made over the six years you've been running for President, here's the good news: Obamacare covers pre-existing conditions. We can fix you up.. We've got a cure. We can make you well, Virginia. This is a curable disease.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Campaign rally http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/10/19/remarks-president-campaign-event-fairfax-va, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia,
2012

Women , Disease , Law , Support

“Now the trickiest catch in the negro problem is the fact that it is really twofold. The black is vastly inferior. There can be no question of this among contemporary and unsentimental biologists—eminent Europeans for whom the prejudice-problem does not exist. But, it is also a fact that there would be a very grave and very legitimate problem even if the negro were the white man's equal. For the simple fact is, that two widely dissimilar races, whether equal or not, cannot peaceably coexist in the same territory until they are either uniformly mongrelised or cast in folkways of permanent and traditional personal aloofness. No normal being feels at ease amidst a population having vast elements radically different from himself in physical aspect and emotional responses. A normal Yankee feels like a fish out of water in a crowd of cultivated Japanese, even though they may be his mental and aesthetic superiors; and the normal Jap feels the same way in a crowd of Yankees. This, of course, implies permanent association. We can all visit exotic scenes and like it—and when we are young and unsophisticated we usually think we might continue to like it as a regular thing. But as years pass, the need of old things and usual influences—home faces and home voices—grows stronger and stronger; and we come to see that mongrelism won't work. We require the environing influence of a set of ways and physical types like our own, and will sacrifice anything to get them. Nothing means anything, in the end, except with reference to that continuous immediate fabric of appearances and experiences of which one was originally part; and if we find ourselves ingulphed by alien and clashing influences, we instinctively fight against them in pursuit of the dominant freeman's average quota of legitimate contentment.... All that any living man normally wants—and all that any man worth calling such will stand for—is as stable and pure a perpetuation as possible of the set of forms and appearances to which his value-perceptions are, from the circumstances of moulding, instinctively attuned. That is all there is to life—the preservation of a framework which will render the experience of the individual apparently relevant and significant, and therefore reasonably satisfying. Here we have the normal phenomenon of race-prejudice in a nutshell—the legitimate fight of every virile personality to live in a world where life shall seem to mean something.... Just how the black and his tan penumbra can ultimately be adjusted to the American fabric, yet remains to be seen. It is possible that the economic dictatorship of the future can work out a diplomatic plan of separate allocation whereby the blacks may follow a self-contained life of their own, avoiding the keenest hardships of inferiority through a reduced number of points of contact with the whites... No one wishes them any intrinsic harm, and all would rejoice if a way were found to ameliorate such difficulties as they have without imperilling the structure of the dominant fabric. It is a fact, however, that sentimentalists exaggerate the woes of the average negro. Millions of them would be perfectly content with servile status if good physical treatment and amusement could be assured them, and they may yet form a well-managed agricultural peasantry. The real problem is the quadroon and octoroon—and still lighter shades. Theirs is a sorry tragedy, but they will have to find a special place. What we can do is to discourage the increase of their numbers by placing the highest possible penalties on miscegenation, and arousing as much public sentiment as possible against lax customs and attitudes—especially in the inland South—at present favouring the melancholy and disgusting phenomenon. All told, I think the modern American is pretty well on his guard, at last, against racial and cultural mongrelism. There will be much deterioration, but the Nordic has a fighting chance of coming out on top in the end.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to James F. Morton (January 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 253
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.

Life , World , Penalty , Way

“His feelings for Adam were an oil spill; he'd let them overflow and now there wasn't a damn place in the ocean that wouldn't catch fire if he dropped a match.”

Maggie Stiefvater (1981) American writer

Ronan about Adam
pg 141
The Raven Cycle Series, The Raven King (2016)

Feeling

“It is beautiful here [in Etretat, Normandy], my friend; every day I discover even more beautiful things. It is intoxicating me, and I want to paint it all - my head is bursting.... I want to fight, scratch it off, start again, because I start to see and understand. I seems to me as if I can see nature and I can catch it all.... it is by observation and reflection that I discover how. That is what we are working on, continuously..”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote of Monet, 1864 in a letter to his friend Frédéric Bazille; as cited in Monet's landschappen Vivian Rusell; Icob, Alphen aan de Rijn, The Netherlands 2010, p. 12
1850 - 1870

Beauty , Understanding , Nature , Fight

“As noble Art has survived noble nature, so too she marches ahead of it, fashioning and awakening by her inspiration. Before Truth sends her triumphant light into the depths of the heart, imagination catches its rays, and the peaks of humanity will be glowing when humid night still lingers in the valleys.”

Friedrich Schiller book On the Aesthetic Education of Man

Letter 9
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)

Truth , Art , Imagination , Fashion

“The Managers of that Trade themselves, and others, testify, that many of these African nations inhabit fertile countries, are industrious farmers, enjoy plenty, and lived quietly, averse to war, before the Europeans debauched them with liquors, and bribing them against one another; and that these inoffensive people are brought into slavery, by stealing them, tempting Kings to sell subjects, which they can have no right to do, and hiring one tribe to war against another, in order to catch prisoners. By such wicked and inhuman ways the English are said to enslave towards one hundred thousand yearly; of which thirty thousand are supposed to die by barbarous treatment in the first year; besides all that are slain in the unnatural wars excited to take them. So much innocent blood have the Managers and Supporters of this inhuman Trade to answer for to the common Lord of all!”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)

War , People , Way , Support

“Innovation is everything. When you're on the forefront, you can see what the next innovation needs to be. When you're behind, you have to spend your energy catching up.”

Robert Noyce (1927–1990) American businessman and engineer

as quoted by [James W. Botkin, Dan Dimancescu, Ray Stata, The innovators: rediscovering America's creative energy, Harper & Row, 1984, 0060152850, 165]

“Let us spell out the Magna Charta of which we humbly catch sight. Let us say to the people of whom all peoples are made: "Wake up and understand, look and see; and having begun again the consciousness which was mown down by slavery, decide that everything must be begun again!"”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XXII - Light

People , Understanding

“You and I, 22 million African-Americans — that's what we are — Africans who are in America. You're nothing but Africans. Nothing but Africans. In fact, you'd get farther calling yourself African instead of Negro. Africans don't catch hell. You're the only one catching hell. They don't have to pass civil-rights bills for Africans.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)

Hell

“I told the Englishman that my alma mater was books, a good library. Every time I catch a plane, I have with me a book that I want to read—and that’s a lot of books these days. If I weren’t out here every day battling the white man, I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity—because you can hardly mention anything I’m not curious about.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Chapter 11, paragraph 59 http://www.uri.edu/library/inscriptions/almamater.html
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)

Reading , Life , Books , Time

“You have to figure it out you have to be mom and a professional athlete. There’s a lot of athletes going to Tokyo that are also fellow mom athletes and I’m excited to catch up with them and kind of just represent all the moms, soccer moms united.”

Alex Morgan (1989) American soccer player

"‘Soccer Mom’ Alex Morgan Back And Looking For Gold In Tokyo" https://www.teamusa.org/News/2021/July/08/Soccer-Mom-Alex-Morgan-Back-And-Looking-For-Gold-In-Tokyo (July 8, 2021)

Moms

“Today, I seem to have developed a new, clear and sharper vision of my life and it's
events that were never evident to me pendant the moments that I was experiencing them as they occurred in my microcosmic world, where I was, "The Bubble Boy".
I felt that I had to clear myself of toxins which were spewed onto my entire existence through an insidious series of betrayals.
I have changed and evolved so much in my lifetime(s) and continue to everyday…every moment.
I have worked on MYSELF.
I have healed myself.
I have gotten to know who I am and know very clearly and sans doubt what a prodigious, rare and special catch I am for the correct person who will actually see and KNOW how fortunate they are to be with Me!
And I they…….. of course.
I am not nor never have I been an ordinary person in any shape or form……. I am black and white………. I possess a vast array of remarkable, innate and perfectly educated qualities which span from one end of the spectrum to the other.
I have lived the most extraordinary, privileged and charmed life. However I have experienced intense loss, pain and sorrow as well…most people are fortunate enough not to ever even be capable of fathoming such extremes."”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Personality , Boy , Life , Pain

“Some of you are drowning, trying to catch every “next BIG wave”… When had you stayed faithful to the first idea you committed to, you'd be walking on water by now.”

Joshua King Madrid (1998)

Source: JetSet Instagram Caption: https://www.instagram.com/p/CqJWWZAvoY2/

Faith , Water , Idea

“I love you," he said, his voice catching. "When I thought you were going to die, I wanted to die.”

Eloisa James (1962) American academic

Source: When Beauty Tamed the Beast

Love