Quotes about catch
page 6

Sinclair Lewis photo

“I'll have this on you for the rest of my life," the maid said, smiling and dangling the strand of hair before him. "Everything will be all right if all goes well between us. Otherwise I'll drag this out and show it to her."
"Put it away carefully and don't ever let her find it," Chia Lien importuned. Then catching Patience off guard, he snatched the hair from her, saying, "It's safest out of your hands and destroyed."
"Ungrateful brute," Patience said with a pretty pout. […] In his tussle with Patience Chia Lien began to feel the fire of passion burn within him. Patience now looked prettier than ever with her pouted lips and her provocative scolding. He tried again to put his arms around her and make love to her, but Patience wriggled free and fled from the room. "You shameless little wanton," Chia Lien said. "You get one all excited and then run away."
Standing outside the window, Patience retorted, "Who's trying to get you excited? You only think of your pleasure. What's going to happen to me when she finds out?"
"Don't be afraid of her," Chia Lien said. "One of these days I'll get good and mad and give that jealous vinegar jar a good and proper beating and teach her who is master. She spies on me as if I were a thief. It's all right for her to talk and laugh with the men of the family, but she grows suspicious if she sees me so much as look at another woman.”

Wang Chi-chen (1899–2001)

Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (1958), pp. 131–132

Ha-Joon Chang photo
Garth Nix photo
Robert Sheckley photo
Regina Spektor photo
A.A. Milne photo

“I found a little beetle, so that beetle was his name,
And I called him Alexander and he answered just the same.
I put him in a matchbox, and I kept him all the day…And Nanny let my beetle out
Yes, Nanny let my beetle out
She went and let my beetle out-
And beetle ran away.She said she didn't mean it, and I never said she did,
She said she wanted matches, and she just took off the lid
She said that she was sorry, but it's difficult to catch
An excited sort of beetle you've mistaken for a match.She said that she was sorry, and I really mustn't mind
As there's lots and lots of beetles which she's certain we could find
If we looked about the garden for the holes where beetles hid-
And we'd get another matchbox, and write BEETLE on the lid.We went to all the places which a beetle might be near,
And we made the sort of noises which a beetle likes to hear,
And I saw a kind of something, and I gave a sort of shout:
"A beetle-house and Alexander Beetle coming out!"It was Alexander Beetle I'm as certain as can be
And he had a sort of look as if he thought it might be ME,
And he had a kind of look as if he thought he ought to say:
"I'm very, very sorry that I tried to run away."And Nanny's very sorry too, for you know what she did,
And she's writing ALEXANDER very blackly on the lid,
So Nan and me are friends, because it's difficult to catch
An excited Alexander you've mistaken for a match.”

Forgiven (affectionately also known as Alexander Beetle).
Now We Are Six (1927)

Deng Xiaoping photo

“It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”

Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997) Chinese politician, Paramount leader of China

Quoted in Hung Li China's Political Situation and the Power Struggle in Peking (1977), p. 107
According to Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (1993), p. 315, this quote is from a speech at the Communist Youth League conference in July 1962.

William S. Burroughs photo
Tracey Ullman photo

“The BBC said the only thing they didn’t like about the show was those weird little animated characters and suggested maybe they could get rid of them because they would never catch on.”

Tracey Ullman (1959) English-born actress, comedian, singer, dancer, screenwriter, producer, director, author and businesswoman

Quoted in 2009 about The Simpsons shorts in The Tracey Ullman Show https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/107675/Brit-comedienne-Tracey-Ullman-can-t-crack-the-UK

John Heywood photo

“And while I at length debate and beate the bushe,
There shall steppe in other men, and catche the burdes,
And by long time lost in many vayne wurdes.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

And while I at length debate and beat the bush,
There shall step in other men, and catch the birds,
And by long time lost in many vain words.
Part I, chapter 3.
Proverbs (1546)

Robert F. Kennedy photo
Amy Hempel photo
Sarvajna photo

“Perhaps we cannot raise the winds. But each of us can put up the sail, so that when the wind comes we can catch it.”

E. F. Schumacher (1911–1977) British economist

Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973)

Alfred De Vigny photo

“A book is a bottle thrown into the sea on which this label should be attached: Catch as catch can.”

Alfred De Vigny (1797–1863) French poet, playwright, and novelist

Un livre est une bouteille jetée en pleine mer sur laquelle il faut coller cette étiquette: attrape qui peut.
Page 93.
Journal d'un poète (1867)

Paul Klee photo
John Oliver photo

“It's like catching an ice cream cone out of the air because a child was hit by a car.”

John Oliver (1977) English comedian

" Brexit Update https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh0ac5HUpDU#t=0m48s" (ff. 0:00:48), June 27, 2016; on David Cameron announcing his resignation after the Brexit referendum.
Last Week Tonight (2014–present)

David Lange photo

“On a trip to Germany, Lange and his entourage were climbing the tower of an ancient castle when they stopped to catch their breath. "How old is this ruin?" someone asked a guide. "Forty-two years," said Lange.”

David Lange (1942–2005) New Zealand politician and 32nd Prime Minister of New Zealand

Anecdotes
Source: A New Zealand Dictionary of Political Quotations, p. 94.

Richard Ford photo
Pik Botha photo

“If we don't stand together, we will never catch up and the industrialised nations won't care. I predict it here today as your brother.”

Pik Botha (1932–2018) South African politician

at the signing of the peace protocol in Brazzaville in 1988
Quoted in Shaun Johnson, Strange Days Indeed (1993), p. 39

Neil deGrasse Tyson photo
A.E. Housman photo
Noel Gallagher photo
Fred Astaire photo
Will Cuppy photo
Aretha Franklin photo

“You walked in on the sly
Scopin' for love
In the crowd, I caught your eye
You can't hide your stuff.You came to catch
You thought I'd be naive and tame
You met your match
I beat you at your own game.”

Aretha Franklin (1942–2018) American musician, singer, songwriter, and pianist

"Who's Zoomin' Who", written with Preston Glass and Narada Michael Walden, from Who's Zoomin' Who? (1985)
Song lyrics

Camille Paglia photo
Camille Paglia photo
David Lynch photo

“Every single thing in the world that was made by anyone started with an idea. So to catch one that is powerful enough to fall in love with, it is one of the most beautiful experiences. It's like being jolted with electricity and knowledge at the same time.”

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

Interview with Chris Douridas (1997) quoted in David Lynch Interviews (2009) by Richard A. Barney

Dashiell Hammett photo

“Spade pulled his hand out of hers. He no longer either smiled or grimaced. His wet yellow face was set hard and deeply lined. His eyes burned madly. He said: "Listen. This isn't a damned bit of good. You'll never understand me, but I'll try once more and then we'll give it up. Listen. When a man's partner is killed he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. Then it happens we were in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed it's bad business to let the killer get away with it. It's bad all around – bad for that one organization, bad for every detective everywhere. Third, I'm a detective and expecting me to run criminals down and then let them go free is like asking a dog to catch a rabbit and let it go. It can be done, all right, and sometimes it is done, but it's not the natural thing. The only way I could have let you go was by letting Gutman and Cairo and the kid go. … Fourth, no matter what I wanted to do now it would be absolutely impossible for me to let you go without having myself dragged to the gallows with the others. Next, I've no reason in God's world to think I can trust you and if I did this and got away with it you'd have something on me that you could use whenever you happened to want to. That's five of them. The sixth would be that, since I've got something on you, I couldn't be sure you wouldn't decide to shoot a hole in *me* some day. Seventh, I don't even like the idea of thinking that there might be one chance in a hundred that you'd played me for a sucker. And eighth – but that's enough. All those on one side. Maybe some of them are unimportant. I won't argue about that. But look at the number of them. Now on the other side we've got what? All we've got is the fact that maybe you love me and maybe I love you." … "But suppose I do? What of it? Maybe next month I won't. I've been through it before – when it lasted that long. Then what? Then I'll think I played the sap. And if I did it and got sent over then I'd be sure I was the sap. Well, if I send you over I'll be sorry as hell – I'll have some rotten nights – but that'll pass. Listen." He took her by the shoulders and bent her back, leaning over her. "If that doesn't mean anything to you forget it and we'll make it this: I won't because all of me wants to – wants to say to hell with the consequences and do it -- and because – God damn you – you've counted on that with me the same as you counted on that with the others. … Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm supposed to be. That kind of reputation might be good business – bringing in high-priced jobs and making it easier to deal with the enemy. … Well, a lot of money would have been at least one more item on the other side of the scales."”

… Spade set the edges of his teeth together and said through them: "I won't play the sap for you."
Chap. 20, "If They Hang You"
spoken by the character "Sam Spade" to "Brigid O'Shaughnessy."
The Maltese Falcon (1930)

George Meredith photo

“She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer,
Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won!”

George Meredith (1828–1909) British novelist and poet of the Victorian era

Love in the Valley http://www.ev90481.dial.pipex.com/Meredith/love_valley.htm, st. 2 (1883).

Josh Homme photo
Michel Seuphor photo
Robert Mayer photo

“Nature has put itself the problem of how to catch in flight light streaming to the Earth and to store the most elusive of all powers in rigid form. The plants take in one form of power, light; and produce another power, chemical difference.”

Robert Mayer (1814–1878) German physicist

in Die organische Bewegung in ihrem Zusammenhange mit dem Stoffwechsel, [Julius Robert von Mayer, Die Mechanik der Wärme in gesammelten Schriften, Cotta, 1867, 53-54]
Original: Die Natur hat sich die Aufgabe gestellt, das der Erde zuströmende Licht im Fluge zu erhaschen, und die beweglichste aller Kräfte, in starre Form umgewandelt, aufzuspeichern. Zur Erreichung dieses Zweckes hat sie die Erdkruste mit Organismen überzogen, welche lebend das Sonnenlicht in sich aufnehmen und unter Verwendung dieser Kraft eine fortlaufende Summe chemischer Differenzen erzeugen.

Marshall McLuhan photo

“In Catch-22, the figure of the black market and the ground of war merge into a monster presided over by the syndicate. When war and market merge, all money transactions begin to drip blood.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1970s, Take Today : The Executive as Dropout (1972), p. 211

TotalBiscuit photo

“"We will not join enemy server." [catches himself] "'Enemy server', what? Let's try that again—empty server. I do want enemies."”

TotalBiscuit (1984–2018) British game commentator

WTF Is…? series, Insurgency (standalone) (January 29, 2014)

Hilaire Belloc photo

“[M]an knows his own nature, and that which he pursues must surely be his satisfaction? Judging by which measure I determine that the best thing in the world is flying at full speed from pursuit, and keeping up hammer and thud and gasp and bleeding till the knees fail and the head grows dizzy, and at last we all fall down and that thing (whatever it is) which pursues us catches us up and eats our carcasses. This way of managing our lives, I think, must be the best thing in the world—for nearly all men choose to live thus.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

The "thing" which pursues us, we subsequently learn, is either "a Money-Devil" or "some appetite or lust" and "the advice is given to all in youth that they must make up their minds which of the two sorts of exercise they would choose, and the first [i.e. pursuit by a Money-Devil] is commonly praised and thought worthy; the second blamed." (p. 32)
Source: The Four Men: A Farrago (1911), pp. 31–2

Sister Nivedita photo
Salvador Dalí photo
Joshua Jackson photo
Tryon Edwards photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“If you want to catch something, running after it isn't always the best way.”

Vorkosigan Saga, The Mountains of Mourning (1989)

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
Ella Wheeler Wilcox photo
William Shenstone photo
Jeremy Brett photo

“Trying to be Sherlock Holmes is like trying to catch an arrow in mid-flight.”

Jeremy Brett (1933–1995) English actor

As related at Playing Holmes http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/collection/sherlock-holmes/features/playing-holmes-in-progress

Eric Schmidt photo

“Playing catch-up with the competition can only ever help you make incremental gains. It will never help you create something new.”

Eric Schmidt (1955) software engineer, businessman

Eric Schmidt: 'Playing catch-up with the competition will never help you create something new' http://macdailynews.com/2014/08/27/eric-schmidt-playing-catch-up-with-the-competition-will-never-help-you-create-something-new in MacDailyNews (28 August 2014).

Newton Lee photo
Francis Marion Crawford photo
Joseph Heller photo

“When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as Catch-22 I'm tempted to reply, "Who has?"”

Joseph Heller (1923–1999) American author

As quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Quotations (1997) edited by Peter Kemp, p. 303

Yogi Berra photo

“Lopat was the cutest of the gang, the easiest to catch because he had almost perfect control of every pitch at different speeds. He made batters impatient. They couldn't wait for what looked so easy to hit and they'd swing at his motion.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

As quoted in "Raschi Was Best Hurler: Yogi" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2rEfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PdcEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1965%2C6170607.

Jerome David Salinger photo
Daniel Handler photo

“At this point in the dreadful story I am writing, I must interrupt for a moment and describe something that happened to a good friend of mine named Mr. Sirin. Mr. Sirin was a lepidoptrerist, a word which usually means "a person who studies butterflies." In this case, however, the word "lepidopterist" means "a man who was being pursued by angry government officials," and on the night I am telling you about they were right on his heels. Mr. Sirin looked back to see how close they were--four officers in their bright-pink uniforms, with small flashlights in their left hands and large nets in their right--and realized that in a moment they would catch up, and arrest him and his six favorite butterflies, which were frantically flapping alongside him. Mr. Sirin did not care much if he was captured--he had been in prison four and a half times over the course of his long and complicated life--but he cared very much about the butterflies. He realized that these six delicate insects would undoubtedly perish in bug prison, where poisonous spiders, stinging bees, and other criminals would rip them to shreds. So, as the secret police closed in, Mr. Sirin opened his mouth as wide as he could and swallowed all six butterflies whole, quickly placing them in the dark but safe confines of his empty stomach. It was not a pleasant feeling to have these six insects living inside him, but Mr. Sirin kept them there for three years, eating only the lightest foods served in prison so as not to crush the insects with a clump of broccoli or a baked potato. When his prison sentence was over, Mr. Sirin burped up the grateful butterflies and resumed his lepidoptery work in a community that was much more friendly to scientists and their specimens.”

Lemony Snicket
The Hostile Hospital (2001)

Laura Antoniou photo
Immortal Technique photo

“My metaphors are dirty like herpes, but harder to catch, like an escape tunnel in prison I started from scratch.”

Immortal Technique (1978) American rapper and activist

Industrial Revolution
Albums, Revolutionary Vol. 2 (2003)

Ben Gibbard photo
Ross Mintzer photo
Francois Rabelais photo

“By robbing Peter he paid Paul, … and hoped to catch larks if ever the heavens should fall.”

Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Gargantua (1534), Chapter 11.

William Cobbett photo
Oliver Goldsmith photo
Alexander Maclaren photo
Roger Ebert photo

“A drop of honey can catch more flies than a gallon of gall.”

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 143 (in 1998 edition)

Alan Bennett photo
Marc Bloch photo

“The good historian is like the giant of the fairy tale. He knows that wherever he catches the scent of human flesh, there his quarry lies.”

Marc Bloch (1886–1944) French historian, medievalist, and historiographer

The Historian's Craft, pg.26

Jerome K. Jerome photo

“If you would taste love, drink of the pure stream that youth pours out at your feet. Do not wait till it has become a muddy river before you stoop to catch its waves.”

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)
Context: It is well, dear ladies, for us old sinners that you study only books. Did you read mankind, you would know that the lad's shy stammering tells a truer tale than our bold eloquence. A boy's love comes from a full heart; a man's is more often the result of a full stomach. Indeed, a man's sluggish current may not be called love, compared with the rushing fountain that wells up when a boy's heart is struck with the heavenly rod. If you would taste love, drink of the pure stream that youth pours out at your feet. Do not wait till it has become a muddy river before you stoop to catch its waves.

Samuel Butler photo

“Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch cold on over-exposure.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Truth, vii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIX - Truth and Convenience

“When laughing children chase after fireflies, they are not pursuing beetles but catching wonder.When wonder matures, it peels back experience to seek deeper layers of marvel below. This is science's highest purpose.”

David G. Haskell (1950) writer, Biologist

"July 13th — Fireflies," page 139
The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature http://theforestunseen.com/ (2012)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“One sweet whisper from her came;
And he drank to catch her breath, —
Wine and sigh alike are death!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(1836-3) (Vol.48) Subjects for Pictures. Second Series. II. A Supper of Madame de Brinvilliers
The Monthly Magazine

Stephen Corry photo
John Barrowman photo
Phil Brooks photo

“Punk: [after hearing John Laurinaitis propose a WWE Championship match at Survivor Series against Alberto Del Rio] Okay, pardon me for not being all smiles, that's exactly what I want, but… what's the catch? You gonna make it a handicap match, or is Ricardo Rodriguez the special guest referee? No, are you gonna be the special guest ring announcer with your majestic voice?
Laurinaitis: Punk, there's only one thing you have to do.
Punk: There's one thing I have to do… for you. I have to do something for you to get a title shot? Let me guess—I gotta re-grip your skateboard, you need new ball bearings?
Laurinaitis: You know what, Punk? I know you don't like me, okay? And that's okay. I'm not playing the part of Executive Vice President of Talent Relations, I am the Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and the General Manager of Raw. So in order for me to make it official, you need to tell me in front of the WWE Universe that you respect me. Tell me that you respect me.
Punk: Are you Aretha Franklin? You want me to tell these people I respect you when I know clearly that you don't respect me 'cause I don't wear a bourgeois suit and I don't tow the company line? You wanna talk about respect? Respect, Johnny, is earned, it isn't just given. And you're gonna come out here and say that when you're in charge, this place… this place is just oh so run like a tight ship. Have you watched the product? We've got rings collapsing, you got Kevin Nash interfering in every other match of mine; this place isn't any better with you in charge. How's that for respect?
Laurinaitis: Punk, you're about to make a big mistake. Okay, swallow your pride, stand up like a man, and tell me that you respect me.
Punk: Okay. All right. Don't get hot. [Imitating Laurinaitis] I respect you, Funk-man. That all right? Was that good enough?
Laurinaitis: I tell you what, Punk. You've got one more chance to show me and tell me you respect me, and I mean it.
Punk: Okay, Mr. Laurinaitis, sir, Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and interim Raw General Manager. I respect you. I respect the fact that each week, you come out here in front of the millions of fans in the WWE Universe, live on the USA Network, with this awesome, completely lost deer-in-the-headlights look on your face; I respect the fact that you don't know how close to hold the microphone to your mouth when you speak; I respect the fact that you used to compete in this ring with your awesome Kentucky waterfall mullet, and you were never any good, but you somehow still ascended to the top of the WWE corporate structure, showing the world new-found levels of brown-nosery; but above all, I respect the fact that never before in this business has somebody with so little done so much! I respect you! How's that sound?! Does that sound good enough for you?!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

October 24, 2011
WWE Raw

Stanisław Lem photo
Tsangyang Gyatso, 6th Dalai Lama photo

“Lassoes can catch the wild horses
that flee over the hills.
But nothing, not even incantations
can hold a wild beloved
who has stopped loving
her lover.”

Tsangyang Gyatso, 6th Dalai Lama (1683–1706) sixth Dalai Lama of Tibet

Source: Attributed, Poems of Sadness: The Erotic Verse of the Sixth Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso tr. Paul Williams 2004, p.13

Muhammad bin Qasim photo
David Hume photo

“For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are remov’d for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions remov’d by death, and cou’d I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I shou’d be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity. If any one upon serious and unprejudic’d reflexion, thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continu’d, which he calls himself; tho’ I am certain there is no such principle in me… But setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.”

Part 4, Section 6
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 1: Of the understanding

Mahasi Sayadaw photo
Taliesin photo
Fiona Apple photo
William Tyndale photo
David Allen photo

“Not stopping to really catch up (Weekly Review, GTDers!) means trying to catch up constantly & never getting there.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

9 August 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/20673625150
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

Warren Farrell photo
Philippe Starck photo
Rodney Dangerfield photo

“When I got back into show business in 1961, I felt — for obvious reasons — that nothing in my life went right, and I realized that millions of people felt the same way. So when I first came back my catch phrase was "nothing goes right."”

Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian

Early on, that was my setup for a lot of jokes.
Source: It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs (2004), p. 126.

Paul Cézanne photo
John Lilly photo
Roger Ebert photo

“Some of the acting is better than the film deserves. Make that all of the acting. Actually, the film stock itself is better than the film deserves. You know when sometimes a film catches fire inside a projector? If it happened with this one, I suspect the audience might cheer.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/revolver-2007 of Revolver (7 December 2007)
Reviews, Half-star reviews

Marcus Orelias photo

“Tightly clenched fist don’t catch blessings.”

Marcus Orelias (1993) American actor, rapper, songwriter, author and entrepreneur
Emily Brontë photo