Catchers Quotes

You have to have a catcher because if you don't you're likely to have a lot of passed balls. ~ Casey Stengel

I cried with pride as I looked into the face of a midwife from the next generation of baby catchers. ~ Peggy Vincent

..this is your dream. Every moment, all of it. Even when you're tired or afraid. You're braver than you realize, and you will do this, and do it well." ~ Carla Olson Gade, The Shadow Catcher's Daughter ~ Carla Olson Gade

Trying to capture the physicists' precise mathematical description of the quantum world with our crude words and mental images is like playing Chopin with a boxing glove on one hand and a catcher's mitt on the other. ~ George Johnson

Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game all right – I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? ~ J.D. Salinger

I like teaching. I would like to help out with the young catchers; be there for them and obviously, you know, what it takes to get here. That's the biggest thing, I think. ~ Jorge Posada

The catchers delight in the moment so frozen but soon discover that the nightingale expires, its clear flutelike song diminishes to silence, the trapped moment grows withered and without life. ~ Alan Lightman

Money always ends up making you blue. ~ J.D. Salinger

People talk about cold weather and it'd be tough to catch balls. But the greatest catcher of all time, Michael Crabtree, catches everything. It's unbelievable. In the northern snowlands, down to the tropics' sunny scenes, he's catching the football. Where they throw a football, he'll be catching it. ~ Jim Harbaugh

If a body catch a body coming through the rye. ~ J.D. Salinger

Our gridlocked conflicts contain the potential for great intimacy between us. But we have to feel safe enough to pull our dreams out of the closet. When we wear them, our partner may glimpse how beautiful we are - fragile but shimmering. Then, with understanding, our partners may join us in being dream catchers, rather than dream shredders. ~ John M. Gottman

What now?" he asks the rat catcher's daughter."What is your command?"
She frowns, then takes the writing stick and paper from him. She writes quickly, and then thrusts the paper towards him. Kiss me, it says. He pulls her into his arms and thinks, Finally. He does not need any further commands from her. ~ Melinda Salisbury

Criminality was so widespread that its practitioners split into fields of specialization. Some became coney catchers, or swindlers (a coney was a rabbit reared for the table and thus unsuspectingly tame); others became foists (pickpockets), nips, or nippers (cutpurses), hookers (who snatched desirables through open windows with hooks), abtams (who feigned lunacy to provide a distraction), whipjacks, fingerers, cross biters, cozeners, courtesy men, and many more. Brawls were shockingly common. ~ Bill Bryson

A status symbol is a book. A very easy book to read is The Catcher in the Rye. Walk around with that under your arm, kids. That is status. ~ Vivienne Westwood

A catcher and his body are like the outlaw and his horse. He's got to ride that nag till it drops. ~ Johnny Bench

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back. ~ Maya Angelou

The last sort I shall mention are verbal critics - mere word-catchers, fellows that pick out a word in a sentence and a sentence in a volume, and tell you it is wrong. The title of Ultra-Crepidarian critics has been given to a variety of this species. ~ William Hazlitt

I do not believe 'Newsweek' is the only catcher in the rye between democracy and ignorance, but I think we're one of them, and I don't think there are that many on the edge of that cliff. ~ Jon Meacham

A lot of these catchers don't understand that they are blocking the plate and they don't have the ball. You're not allowed to block the plate without the ball. ~ Pete Rose

I don't exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it. ~ J.D. Salinger

In the White House, you can be on the pitcher's mound or you can be in the catcher's position. Put points on the board. Show people you can govern. Deliver on what you said you were going to deliver on. ~ Rahm Emanuel

Bookshops are
time machines
spaceships
story-makers
secret-keepers
dragon-tamers
dream-catchers
fact-finders
& safe places.
(this book is for those who know this to be true) ~ Jen Campbell

When I was a baby child, they put the jinx on me. It was in my drink and food and milk. And when I ran, it heavied in my bones and when I sang, it stopped up my throat and when I loved, it let from me, hot and poisonous. I saw it in my daddy, the hard lines of his face, that uneasy lope - how in his years he didn't lift his feet, but slid them, soles across this gritted earth. It settled in my mama, trembled her voice and blanked her eyes. My brother, Billy, locked it inside him and it carried him low into that deep earth, silting then into the river and dew and air, in the moths and bee catchers, borne skyward and, as will be, lowed again, into earth again. It's dusking. There goes the sun. There goes sky and cloud and light, taken into that black horizon. And I know I am bad crossed. I see its line. It reaches up, arcs. It cuts through me. It draws me on and dogs me down to that place where I am bound. And when it is I borne down, my eyes and mouth stitched with gut, when they take my balls and brain and heart, and that deeper black claims me wholly, then let me meet that sumbitch at his eye, for I know my name's been writ - Robert Lee Chatham - in his Book. ~ Bill Cheng

I take many things seriously. Rudyard Kipling, Harper Lee, Oscar Wilde, and Elmore Leonard are all held in the highest regard. I am dead serious when I discuss the many reasons that Ernest Hemingway's greatest contribution to literature was his generous decision to take his own life. I will not be sucked into a discussion of politics by people who prefer emotion to reason. The designated hitter is an abomination, and the day pitchers and catchers report is the start of the new year despite what those ill-informed calendar makers might try to tell you." "I ~ Brian D. Meeks

I'd never seen that look on another face before, had never identified it in another person. I'd only met with it in fiction. But everyone falls in love with Holden Caulfield when they're sixteen. They read Catcher in the Rye and don't feel so alone. ~ Tiffanie DeBartolo

I used to soak my mitts in a bucket of water for about two days. Then I'd put a couple of baseballs in the pocket and wrap it up with a rubber band. Today you don't have to do that, because catchers' mitts are more like first baseman's gloves. ~ Bob Uecker

When people think of me, they think about me knocking catchers down and knocking second basemen down and yelling at pitchers. But when I took the spikes off after the game, I was a nice guy when I went home. ~ Pete Rose

Yes, hard is good. When I was in high school, I spent a lot of time on my knees playing with balls. I guess it was only natural that I became a catcher. ~ Mike Piazza

Thus Nero went up and down Greece and challenged the fiddlers at their trade. Aeropus, a Macedonian king, made lanterns; Harcatius, the king of Parthia, was a mole-catcher; and Biantes, the Lydian, filed needles. ~ Jeremy Taylor

Mallory!" Catcher's voice boomed down the stairs.
Mallory fixed her mouth into a tight line and walked me into the kitchen. "Ignore it," she advised. "Much like the bubonic plague, it'll go away if you give it enough time."
"Mallory! You weren't finished! Get back in here!"
I glanced up the stairway. "You didn't leave him handcuffed to the bed or something, did you?"
"Jesus, no." I incrementally relaxed, until she continued. "My headboard's a single piece of wood. There's nothing to handcuff him to. ~ Chloe Neill

If T. S. Eliot had stayed in St Louis, he would never have held that April was the cruelest month. Well, unless he was a Browns fan.

At this moment, in the ragged middle of February, it begins: beneath the snow, roots quicken. In the Deep South, already trees begin to bud. And all over the land – indeed, all over the world, in Japan, in the Caribbean, in Australia – a certain class of mammal, fubsy, amiable, sweet-natured, begins to twitch and wake from hibernation: the baseball fan. Is it the lengthening of the days? Is it some subtle signal that causes them to begin to emerge from a stupor only lightly disturbed by meetings of the Hot Stove League? Naw. It is the magic phrase, 'pitchers and catchers to report…. ~ Markham Shaw Pyle

Or there, in the clay-baked piedmont of the South, that lean and tan-faced boy who sprawls there in the creaking chair among admiring cronies before the open doorways of the fire department, and tells them how he pitched the team to shut-out victory to-day. What visions burn, what dreams possess him, seeker of the night? The packed stands of the stadium, the bleachers sweltering with their unshaded hordes, the faultless velvet of the diamond, unlike the clay-balked outfields down in Georgia. The mounting roar of eighty thousand voices and Gehrig coming up to bat, the boy himself upon the pitching mound, the lean face steady as a hound's; then the nod, the signal, and the wind-up, the rawhide arm that snaps and crackles like a whip, the small white bullet of the blazing ball, its loud report in the oiled pocket of the catcher's mitt, the umpire's thumb jerked upwards, the clean strike. ~ Thomas Wolfe

Your bone shall remain
Your flesh shall remain
Your spirit shall remain ~ Kat Beyer

He likes to take strolls by himself and believes dog-catchers are friendly innkeepers who'll take care of a meal. He's gullible and has never learned to fight back against a ruthless world. ~ Tom Hayden

A team of giants needs giant pitchers who throw good ideas but every pitcher needs an outstanding catcher. Without giant catchers, the ideas of the giant pitchers may eventually disappear. ~ Max De Pree

Did I mention I love your nail polish? " I asked.
"You did not, but thank you. Times like this, you gotta have a bright spot. You gotta have something to lighten the mood. Catcher's homemade waffles and enormous dick usually do the trick. ~ Chloe Neill

The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them. ~ J.D. Salinger

It is now. It is always now. Now is good. Now could be the best. My name is Catcher. My name was Catcher.
My name ... my name ...
I am ...
I am lost, I am found and then I am free and I am happy.
When I jump over that edge, someone leaps with me, shoulder to shoulder. I smell kinship on him. Kinship is all. I'm not alone.
Never alone.
I land, earth below me, moon above. I am wolf. We are pack.
And that is all I need. ~ Rob Thurman

No, let's be fair," I said. "Being a villain's an option."

"You did not say that," Fox-mask said, incredulous, "It's not an option at all."

The girl in blue looked at Mrs. Yamada, "Ex-villain's corrupting the kids, and you're not stopping her?"

Mrs. Yamada was frowning at me.

"I'm going somewhere with this, honest," I said.

"If you're sure," she said. "I can stop you at any time."

"You can."

I looked at the gathered kids. A few of the less successful butterfly catchers had drifted away and approached.

"I always hated the speeches when I was in school, the preaching in auditoriums, the one-note message. Stuff like saying drugs are bad. It's wrong. Drugs are fantastic."

"Um," Fox-mask said.

Mrs. Yamada was glaring at me, but she hadn't interrupted.

"People wouldn't do them if they weren't. They make you feel good, make your day brighter, give you energy-"

"Weaver," Mrs. Yamada cut in.

"-until they don't," I said. "People hear the message that drugs are bad, that they'll ruin your life if you do them once. And then you find out that isn't exactly true because your friends did it and turned out okay, or you wind up trying something and you're fine. So you try them, try them again. It isn't a mind-shattering moment of horrible when you try that first drug. Or so I hear. It's subtle, it creeps up on you, and you never really get a good, conv ~ Wildbow

The only job worse is a javelin catcher at a track - and - field meet. ~ Gump Worsley

[Daughter], I want to release you. IF you hate me or want to reject me, I understand. If you curse me, then want to atone, I also understand. I expect to be your home plate: kicked, scuffed, but always returned to. I expect to be the earth from which you spring.
But if I release you too much, what will you have to fight against?
You need my acceptance, but you may need my resistance more. I promise to stand firm while you come and go. I promise unwavering live while you experiment with hate. Hate is energy too -- sometimes brighter-burning energy than love. Hate is often the precondition for freedom.
No matter how I try to disappear, I fear I cast too big a shadow. I would erase that shadow if I could. but if I erased it, how would you know your own shadow? And with no shadow, how would you ever fly?
I want to release you from the fears that bound me, yet I know you can only release yourself. I stand here wearing my catcher's padding. I pray you won't need me to catch you if you fall. But I'm here waiting anyway.
Freedom is full of fear. But fear isn't the worst thing we face. Paralysis is. ~ Erica Jong

Artists, composers and writers...are bent upon capturing and reining in the insights of a fugitive imagination, always inclined to shoot off into the distance, before they can get away, and on bringing them back into the immediacy of material engagement. Like hunters, they too are dream-catchers. ~ Tim Ingold

We've always used stories as a way to pass on our history, as a way to explain things in life that we don't understand. We use them to make us feel connected to everything around us, and to help us escape to another time or place.
Bookshops across the world are full of these stories.
From travelling booksellers and undercover bookshops, to pop-up stalls and community hubs, walking into a good bookshop is like walking into another zone.These places are time machines, spaceships, story-makers, secret-keepers. They are dragon-tamers, dream-catchers, fact-finders and safe places. They are full of infinite possibilities, and tales worth taking home.
Because whether we're in the middle of the desert or in the heart of a city, on the top of a mountain or on an underground train: having good stories to keep us company can mean the whole world. ~ Jen Campbell

I really like The Catcher in the Rye a lot. ~ Ethan Suplee

I realize that this is the way the world works. If I could stop the spin, stop the rotation, I would have done so long ago. I would have stopped it the first moment that Catcher's lips met mine under the moon in the amusement park. I would have held us in that eternity forever. But of course everything presses forward, even as we dig our feet against the reality of it all. One even tumbles from the next out of our control and we are dragged along, helpless. ~ Carrie Ryan

Of course, I believe that Mike Piazza is probably the greatest offensive catcher in the history of baseball, only got over 50%. Johnny Bench is the best catcher in the history of baseball, but Piazza has all the record for catchers as far as offensively. ~ Pete Rose

I was fantastically well versed by the time I left school. I had a teacher who put 'A Clockwork Orange' my way, and 'Catcher in the Rye.' ~ Kenneth Cranham

The game has never seen a better catcher than YADIER MOLINA. ~ Tony La Russa

No baseball pitcher would be worth a darn without a catcher who could handle the hot fastball. ~ Casey Stengel

What happened?" I ask. My heart hurts.
"That big guy," he says. His voice is high and tight. "Number forty-six. Jeez, he just bashed his shoulder right into my chest, and when I was on the ground, he steps on my leg with his cleat." He sniffs hard, rubs his nose on his sleeve, doesn't meet my eyes.
"That bastard," I say. "The minute he gets off the field I'm going to kick him in the balls." Oliver laughs a little, his eyes filling up at the same time. "He'll never know what hit him. His balls are gonna go flying, I promise you that. People will wish they brought their catcher's mitts. ~ Deb Caletti

I do what I've trained my whole life to do. I watch the ball. I keep my eye on the ball. I never stop watching.
I watch it as it sails past me and lands in the catcher's mitt, a perfect and glorious strike three. ~ Barry Lyga

To me, White Boy Shuffle is sort of like Catcher in the Rye, the story is so universal. ~ Ryan Phillippe

Not only was I not the best catcher in the Major Leagues, I wasn't even the best catcher on my street! ~ Joe Garagiola

That whole thing about, 'Hey, ex-catchers are the best managers.' Listen, pitching coaches have some brains, too. Sometimes they're not all there, but sometimes they are. ~ Don Cooper

I was trying to feel some kind of good-bye. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don't care if it's a sad good-bye or a bad good-bye, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't you feel even worse. ~ J.D. Salinger

Josh Bard is a catcher with excellent defensive tools and someone ... whose best days are ahead of him. He's not coming off his best [offensive] season, but we still think there is some ceiling on him. He has outstanding makeup and calls a good game. [He's] a solid receiver with a plus arm, and he's going to be coming to camp with a chance to open some eyes. ~ Theo Epstein

And yes, Holden would keep those kids from falling off the cliff, but WHO WOULDN'T? Does she think I would just fold my arms or give them a pat on the back before they sailed headfirst to the ground? We are all catchers, and it's sad that she doesn't see it. Instead she sees the PHONINESS, she deplores the world even after I point out that I am in it. ~ David Levithan

It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road. ~ J.D. Salinger

Maintaining concentration depends on what I call tunnel vision; nothing else in the world exists but the catcher's target, the hitter and my perfect delivery. ~ Nolan Ryan

My first film goes into production in October. It's called White Boy Shuffle and it's based on a novel about a young black kid and it's sort of reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye. ~ Ryan Phillippe

Mention in baseball's official record books, however, requires that catchers play a minimum of 156 games in a season, ~ Mark S. Halfon

John pointed at me to get my attention. He circled his finger in the air to tell me to wrap it up, then pointed to his cop car. I made a series of baseball catcher's signs. ~ Jennifer Echols

It's nice to have a catcher who knows my mechanics, too. That way if I get into trouble he can stop it before I get out of control. ~ Tim Wakefield

The great thing about catchers is that they do a lot of different things, and they're basically overlooked. ~ Roger Angell

To translate man back into nature, to become master over the many vain and overly enthusiastic interpretations and connotations that have so far been scrawled and painted over that eternal basic text of homo natura; to see to it that the human being henceforth stands before human beings as even today, hardened in the discipline of science, he stands before the rest of nature, with intrepid Oedipus eyes and sealed Odysseus ears, deaf to the siren songs of old metaphysical bird catchers who have been piping at him all too long, "you are more, you are higher, you are of a different origin" - that may be a strange and insane task, but it is a task - who would deny that? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Don't try to strike everybody out ... stay back and just focus on the catcher's mitt, just throw the ball low in the strike zone. ~ Ubaldo Jimenez

Canzeroni is the only defensive catcher that can't catch. ~ Casey Stengel

Catcher in the Rye had a profound impact on me-the idea that we all have lots of dreams that are slowly being chipped away as we grow up. ~ Judd Nelson

Palermo is dotted everywhere with frittura shacks- street carts and storefronts specializing in fried foods of all shapes and cardiac impacts. On the fringes of the Ballarò market are bars serving pane e panelle, fried wedges of mashed chickpeas combined with potato fritters and stuffed into a roll the size of a catcher's mitt. This is how the vendors start their days; this is how you should start yours, too. If fried chickpea sandwiches don't register as breakfast food, consider an early evening at Friggitoria Chiluzzo, posted on a plastic stool with a pack of locals, knocking back beers with plates of fried artichokes and arancini, glorious balls of saffron-stained rice stuffed with ragù and fried golden- another delicious ode to Africa.
Indeed, frying food is one of the favorite pastimes of the palermitani, and they do it- as all great frying should be done- with a mix of skill and reckless abandon. Ganci is among the city's most beloved oil baths, a sliver of a store offering more calories per square foot than anywhere I've ever eaten. You can smell the mischief a block before you hit the front door: pizza topped with french fries and fried eggplant, fried rice balls stuffed with ham and cubes of mozzarella, and a ghastly concoction called spiedino that involves a brick of béchamel and meat sauce coated in bread crumbs and fried until you could break someone's window with it. ~ Matt Goulding

He hated it when you called him a moron. All morons hate it when you call them a moron ~ Jerome Salinger

Two hundred million Americans, and there ain't two good catchers among 'em. ~ Casey Stengel

All backups take their cue from Elrod Hendricks, the patron saint of erstwhile catchers. ~ Stephen Rodrick