Quotes from Catalyst

Laurie Halse Anderson ·  232 pages

Rating: (15.2K votes)


“Oppressive bastards, think they own the place. I told them that karma's going to kick their asses....”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Catalyst


“I wish I were three feet tall and he could pick me up and he still had a beard and he wore cotton sweaters that felt soft on my cheek and I could cry it all away and I would wipe my tears on his shoulder and I could suck my thumb and suck the end of my ponytail and he wouldn't tell me only babies did that and he would rock me on the front porch with the wind coming clean from the north and he would sing nursery rhymes with made-up words like Mom used to and he could teach me the alphabet again and how to walk and how to run and maybe I would do it better this time.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Catalyst


“I'm just going to pretend that a very good-smelling, incredibly warm stranger is sitting next to me, a harmless stranger.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Catalyst


“A teacher (a good teacher) is composed of molecules of education and intelligence, bonded together by patience and passion.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Catalyst


About the author

Laurie Halse Anderson
Born place: in Potsdam, New York, The United States
Born date October 23, 2018
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Popular quotes

“We gotta haul ass so that clown doesn’t catch us,” Trey said. “What?” “That clown on the bicycle. He’s gaining on us. I don’t want that sucker to catch us.” Four days into Hell Week, and Trey truly believed that a clown on a bicycle on the Bay of San Diego was going to catch us in our IBS. He couldn’t let that happen.”
― Rorke Denver, quote from Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior


“People do not yet realize (because the mind isn't built that way) what war can be. They fear it but surely they fear it the way children fear nightmares, dimly, without definite images in their heads of how it will all work out.”
― Martha Gellhorn, quote from Selected Letters


“mad maddie: i am SOOOO pissed. SnowAngel: oh no. why? mad maddie: one word. well, two. JANA WHITAKER. SnowAngel: the queen bee of our entire class? *gasps* what’d she do this time? mad maddie: i hate her. she’s evil. SnowAngel: i KNOW that. TELL ME WHAT SHE DID!!!! mad maddie: we had a substitute for last period study hall and he insisted on taking roll, cuz god forbid one of us had snuck off to do something productive. when he got to me he called out, “madeleine kinnick?” and jana turns around, all batting eyes and innocent, and goes, “um, isn’t your name madigan?” SnowAngel: yr name IS madigan. mad maddie: which jana totally knows! SnowAngel: so what’s the problem? mad maddie: r u serious?!! mad maddie: it was the way she said it, like she was honestly confused. like, “oh my goodness, i THINK i know u, don’t i?” WHEN WE’VE GONE TO SCHOOL TOGETHER SINCE 7th GRADE!!!”
― Lauren Myracle, quote from ttyl


“      The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion toward his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.”
― Ronald Takaki, quote from A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America


“O my Lord, inflame my heart with love for You, that my spirit may not grow weary amidst the storms, the sufferings and the trials. You see how weak I am. Love can do all. 95 + A Deeper Knowledge”
― Maria Faustina Kowalska, quote from Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul


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