RAGAMUFFIN'S CAT QUOTES

Dedicated to the memory of Maslow, Ewok, Habersham, Donut, Red Fish, Scarlett, C3PO, R2D2, Skuzz, Godzilla, Pearl, Buttermilk, Spot, Mamma Kitty, Bandit, Cujo, Tom, CC, Maxie, Wildfire, Swee' Pea, Francisca, Romeo, Dexter, Beeboo, Midnight, Copper, Spike, Hoy-Hoy, Flapcat, Xena, Puff Daddy, Socks, Fred, Helix, Dusty, Buzz, Anakin, Polar Bear, Butch, Delilah, Shiro, Dewey, Tardar Sauce, Flapjack, Munchkin, Scalawag, Pepper, Piglet, Little Stuff, Socrates, Bright Eyes, Meowingtons, Chase No Face, Bumblebee, Viper, Cockatiel, Sugarloaf, Aida - and the wonderful Ragamuffin.

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Here is Ragamuffin's tribute to those who lost their lives in the 2001 terrorist attack on the United States. Please feel free to copy this graphic and display it on your web page.

Douglas Adams:

One of the problems of taking things apart and seeing how they work - supposing you're trying to find out how a cat works--you take that cat apart to see how it works, what you've got in your hands is a non-working cat. The cat wasn't a sort of clunky mechanism that was susceptible to our available tools of analysis.

Don Addis:

Never play cat and mouse games if you're a mouse.

Bill Adler:

A cat is there when you call her - if she doesn't have anything better to do.

Astrid Alauda:

I named my kitten Rose - fur soft as a petal, claws sharper than thorns.

Louisa May Alcott:

But buds will be roses, and kittens, cats - more's the pity!

Lloyd Alexander:

Two cats can live as cheaply as one, and their owner has twice as much fun.

Most cats do not approach humans recklessly. The possibility of concealed weapons, clods or sticks, tends to make them reserved. Homeless cats in particular - with some justification, unfortunately - consider humans their natural enemies. Much ceremony must be observed, and a number of diplomatic feelers put out before establishing a state of truce.

If the pull of the outside world is strong, there is also a pull towards the human. The cat may disappear on its own errands, but sooner or later, it returns once again for a little while, to greet us with its own type of love.

Rosanne Amberson:

In the middle of a world that had always been a bit mad, the cat walks with confidence.

Kingsley Amis:

Cats are only human, they have their faults.

Roseanne Ambrose-Brown

Places to look: behind the books in the bookshelf, any cupboard with a gap too small for any cat to squeeze through, the top of anything sheer, under anything too low for a cat to squash under and inside the piano.

Cleveland Amory:

Cats talk with their tails.

As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind.

...one of the ways in which cats show happiness is by sleeping.

To anyone who has ever been owned by a cat, it will come as no surprise that there are all sorts of things about your cat you will never, as long as you live, forget. Not the least of these is the first sight of him or her.

Roseanne Anderson:

In the middle of a world that has always been a bit mad, the cat walks with confidence.

Paul Annixter:

Passion for place - there is no greater urge in feline nature.

Rebecca Anthony:

There is nothing more dear than a sleeping cat.

Michelle Argabrite:

I think my favorite thing in the house has to be the cat...mainly because she's just like a big piece of noisy Velcro when you toss her at the sofa.

Matthew Arnold:

Cruel, but composed and bland,
Dumb, inscrutable and grand,
So Tiberius might have sat,
Had Tiberius been a cat.

Danielle Asson:

A dog will show his love by jumping on you at the front door. A cat will show his love by ignoring you, and then curling up next to you when you need it most.

Alan Ayckbourn:

Cats names are more for human benefit. They give one a certain degree more confidence that the animal belongs to you.

Peggy Bacon:

I cannot exist without a cat...Life would not be worth living without a cat.

Stephen Baker:

Cats' hearing apparatus is built to allow the human voice to easily go in one ear and out the other.

Kittens are born with their eyes shut. They open them in about six days, take a look around, then close them again for the better part of their lives.

Most beds sleep up to six cats. Ten cats without the owner.

As a housepet, I'm overqualified.
- Speaking as a cat in How to Live with a Neurotic Cat

Cats are notoriously sore losers. Coming in second best, especially to someone as poorly coordinated as a human being, grates their sensibility.

To bathe a cat takes brute force, perseverance, courage of conviction - and a cat. The last ingredient is usually hardest to come by.

Of all the toys available, none is better designed than the owner himself. A large multipurpose plaything, its parts can be made to move in almost any direction. It comes completely assembled, and it makes a sound when you jump on it.

Mij Colson Barnum:

Surely the cat, when it assumes the meat loaf position and gazes meditatively through slitted eyes, is pondering thoughts of utter profundity.

Oswald Barron:

She knows that nine lives are enough.

Drew Barrymore:

If I die before my cat, I want a little of my ashes put in his food so I can live inside him.

Wesley Bates:

There's no need for a piece of sculpture in a home that has a cat.

Charles Baudelaire:

Both ardent lovers and austere scholars, when once they come to the years of discretion, love cats, so strong and gentle, the pride of the household, who like them are sensitive to the cold, and sedentary.

Drowsing, they take the noble attitude of a great sphinx, who, in a desert land, sleeps always, dreaming dreams that have no end.

It is easy to understand why the rabble dislike cats. A cat is beautiful; it suggests ideas of luxury, cleanliness, voluptuous pleasures.

Louise A. Belcher:

Any household with at least one feline member has no need for an alarm clock.

Eric Temple Bell:

Cats hate water only when it is dumped on them, as who wouldn't? Given the opportunity, they will fish diligently in the neighborhood fish ponds.

Hilaire Belloc:

You are my cat and I am your human.

William Bennett:

Happiness is like a cat. If you try to coax it or call it, it will avoid you. It will never come. But if you pay no attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing up against your legs and jumping into your lap.

Margaret Benson:

A plate is distasteful to a cat, a newspaper still worse; they like to eat sticky pieces of meat sitting on a cushioned chair or a nice Persian rug.

A cat must either have beauty and breeding, or it must have a profession.

The cat is above all things, a dramatist.

Ellen Perry Berkeley:

As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat.

Ambrose Bierce:

Cat: a soft indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

Rev. W. Bingley:

Cats, by means of their whiskers, seem to possess something like an additional sense: these have, perhaps, some analogy to the antennae of moths and butterflies.

Roy Blount, Jr.:

If a cat spoke, it would say things like "Hey, I don't see the problem here."

I guess a cat is sort of like a poem. A cat is relatively short. A cat is only subtly demonstrative. To be sure, you can curl up with a good cat, but that doesn't mean you understand the cat.

Cats have intercepted my footsteps at the ankle for so long that my gait, both at home and on tour, has been compared to that of a man wading through low surf.

Mary Bly:

Dogs come when they're called. Cats take a message and get back to you later.

R. H. Blyth:

I myself think to have a cat is more important than to have a Bible.

Michael Bolton:

Cats are cool. They have style, personality, sophistication, and just the right amount of confidence.

Elayne Boosler:

A man who was loved by 300 women singled me out to live with him. Why? I was the only one without a cat.

Karen Brademeyer:

Who among us hasn't envied a cat's ability to ignore the cares of daily life and to relax completely?

Charles J. Brady:

The real measure of a day's heat is the length of a sleeping cat.

Lillian Jackson Braun:

Cats never strike a pose that isn't photogenic.

Dogs have their day but cats have 365.

Arthur Bridges:

A cat isn't fussy - just so long as you remember he likes his milk in the shallow, rose-patterned saucer and his fish on the blue plate. From which he will take it, and eat it off the floor.

Emily Bronte:

I can say with sincerity that I like cats; also I can give very good reasons why those who despise them are wrong. A cat is an animal who has more human feelings than almost any other being.

Cats have an infallible understanding of total concentration - and get between you and it.

Gwendolyn Brooks:

One reason cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers..

Pam Brown:

Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that will cause most inconvenience.

Philip Brown:

It was difficult to feel vexed by a creature that burst into a chorus of purring as soon as I spoke to him.

Dereke Bruce:

In order to keep a true perspective of one's importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him.

K. C. Buffington:

The reason cats climb is so that they can look down on almost every other animal - it's also the reason they hate birds.

Jean Burden:

Prowling his own quiet backyard or asleep by the fire, he is still only a whisker away from the wilds.

A dog, I have always said, is prose; a cat is a poem.

H. Monger Burdock:

A cat sleeping on your bed is a far more pleasant companion than a ninety-pound Labrador with bad breath. Furthermore, cats do not snore or break wind.

Edward Burlingame:

I love cats. I even think we have one at home.

William S. Burroughs:

The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. Of course he wants care and shelter. You don't buy love for nothing. Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.

Maurice Burton:

Anyone who claims that a cat cannot give a dirty look either has never kept a cat or is singularly unobservant.

Martin Buxbaum:

If we treated everyone we meet with the same affection we bestow upon our favorite cat, they, too, would purr.

Robert Byrne:

To err is human, to purr feline.

Italo Calvino:

The city of cats and the city of men exist one inside the other, but they are not the same city.

Anne Campbell:

A cat is like a puzzle with no solution.

Dr. Louis J. Camuti:

Most cats, when they are Out want to be In, and vice versa, and often simultaneously.

There is something about the presence of a cat...that seems to take the bite out of being alone.

In my experience, cats and beds seem to be a natural combination.

Cat people are different, to the extent that they generally are not conformists. How could they be, with a cat running their lives?

Work - other people's work - is an intolerable idea to a cat. Can you picture cats herding sheep or agreeing to pull a cart? They will not inconvenience themselves to the slightest degree.

A cat determined not to be found can fold itself up like a pocket handkerchief if it wants to.

Karel Capek:

Quite obviously a cat trusts human beings; but she doesn't trust a cat because she knows her better than we do.

Roger A. Caras:

Cats don't like change without their consent.

Cats can be cooperative when something feels good, which, to a cat, is the way everything is supposed to feel as much of the time as possible.

The cat is a creature of most refined and subtle perceptions naturally.

George Carlin:

'Meow' means 'woof' in cat.

William H. A. Carr:

Cats are like greatness: Some people are born into cat-loving families, some achieve cats, and some have cats thrust upon them.

Few people are mugwumps about the cat.

Winifred Carriere:

Cats always know whether people like or dislike them. They do not always care enough to do anything about it.

If a cat did not put a firm paw down now and then, how could his human remain possessed.

I suspect that many an ailurophobe hates cats only because he feels they are better than he is - more honest, more secure, more loved, more whatever he is not.

Lewis Carroll:

It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that whatever you say to them, they always purr.

Jacob Cats:

If one owns a pretty cat, it's best to avoid the furrier.

Jules Champfleury:

The love of dress is very marked in this attractive animal. He is proud of the lustre of his coat, and cannot endure that a hair of it shall lie the wrong way.

There is no more intrepid explorer than a kitten. He makes perilous voyages into cellar and attic, he scales the roofs of neighboring houses, he thrusts his little inquiring nose into half-shut doors...he gets himself into every kind of trouble, and he's always sorry when it is too late.

A kitten is the joy of a household. All day long this incomparable actor plays his little comedy, and those who search for perpetual motion can do no better than watch his antics.

Raymond Chandler:

I said something which gave you to think I hated cats. But gad, sir, I am one of the most fanatical cat lovers in the business. If you hate them, I may learn to hate you. If your allergies hate them, I will tolerate the situation to the best of my ability.

Ray Charles:

Whether they be the musician cats in my band or the real cats of the world, they all got style.

Emile Auguste Chartier:

Two things are aesthetically perfect in the world - the clock and the cat.

Francois Rene de Chateaubriand:

The cat lives alone. He has no need of society. He obeys only when he wishes, he pretends to sleep the better to see, and scratches everything he can scratch.

When we caress her, she stretches herself and arches her back responsively; but this is because she feels an agreeable sensation, not because she takes a silly satisfaction, like the dog, in faithfully loving a thankless master.

Chaucer:

Take a cat, nourish it well with milk
And tender meat, make it a couch of silk,
But let it see a mouse along the wall
And it abandones milk and meat and all.

Julia Child:

Love, butter, and the company of cats is the recipe for a good life.

Winston Churchill:

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

Seymour and Paula Chwast:

Getting a cat is a greater commitment than getting married.

John Ciardi:

The thing about cats,
As you may find,
Is that no one knows
What they have in mind.

Eleanor Clark:

Even the stupidest cat seems to know more than any dog.

Susy Clemens (daughter of author Mark Twain):

Momma loves morals and Papa loves cats.

Jean Cocteau:

I love my cats because I love my home, and little by little they become its visible soul.

Colette:

There are no ordinary cats.

Time spent with cats is never wasted.

By associating with the cat, one only risks becoming richer.

My cat does not talk as respectfully to me as I do to her.

I am indebted to the species of the cat for a particular kind of honorable deceit, for a great control over myself, for a characteristic aversion to brutal sounds, and for the need to keep silent for long period of time.

Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.

My cat does not talk as respectfully to me as I do to her.

There stands before you, gray like all the other grays but one whom you won't confuse, having seen her once, with any other gray cat, she who rejects the names of queens, the childish diminutives, and is called - as if she were he only one in the world - Cat.

O cat of ashen coat! To the uninitiated you look like every other gray cat on earth, lazy, oblivious, morose, somewhat listless, neuter, bored...but I know you to be wildly tender, and whimsical, jealous to the point of starving yourself, talkative, paradoxically awkward, and, on occasion, as tough as a young mastiff.

Charles Horton Cooley:

A cat cares for you only as a source of food, security, and a place in the sun. Her high self-sufficiency is her charm.

Megan Coughlin:

We need a word for all the kitty-prints that are all over my windshield because the cats like to lie on my hood when the car is still warm.

I'm aloof, I like to run around outside, but I also like to curl up in warm spots. I eat fish.
[Explaining why she would make a good cat]

William Cowper:

A poet's cat, sedate and grave
As a poet well could wish to have...

Time, that spoils all things, will, I suppose, make her also a cat...For no wisdom that she may gain by experience and reflection hereafter will compensate for the loss of her present hilarity.

Nelson A. Crawford:

The cat lives his own life; he expects you to live yours.

Will Cuppy:

If a cat does something, we call it instinct; if we do the same thing, for the same reason, we call it intelligence.

Martha Curtis:

Cats come and go without ever leaving.

Edward Dahlberg:

One cat in a house is a sign of loneliness, two of barrenness, and three of sodomy.

Patricia Dale-Green:

There is one way in which cats differ from all other animals and that is in the effect they have on human beings.

The cat has always been associated with the moon. Like the moon it comes to life at night, escaping from humanity and wandering over housetops with its eyes beaming out through the darkness.

Bill Dana:

I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult. It's not. Mine had me trained in two days.

Erasmus Darwin:

To respect the cat is the beginning of the aesthetic sense.

Robertson Davies:

Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.

The great charm of cats is their rampant egotism, their devil-may-care attitude toward responsibility, their disinclination to earn an honest dollar...cats are disdainful of everything but their own immediate interests.

The kitten has a luxurious, Bohemian, unpuritanical nature. It eats six meals a day, plays furiously with a toy mouse and a piece of rope, and suddenly falls into a deep sleep whenever the fit takes it. It never feels the necessity to do anything to justify its existence; it does not want to be a Good Citizen; it has never heard of Service. It knows that it is beautiful and delightful, and it considers that a sufficient contribution to the general good. And in return for its beauty and charm it expects fish, meat, and vegetables, a comfortable bed, a chair by the grate fire, and endless petting.

Leonardo da Vinci:

The smallest feline is a masterpiece.

James Davis, DVM:

Cats are just little hair factories.

Jim Davis:

Way down deep, we're all motivated by the same urges. Cats have the courage to live by them.

Cats instinctively know the precise moment their owners will awaken...then they awaken them ten minutes earlier.

They say a cat always lands on his feet, but they don't mention the pain. (as Garfield the cat)

Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon:

The cat is the only animal which accepts the comforts but rejects the bondage of domesticity.

Miguel de Cervantes:

In the night all cats are gray.

Those who will play with cats must expect to get scratched.

Bernos de Gasztold:

Wouldn't You like someday
To put a curse on the whole race of dogs?
If so, I should say, Amen.

Jean de la Fontaine:

Cats know not how to pardon.

J. J. L. de Lalande:

I love cats, I adore cats, and may be forgiven for putting one in the sky, after sixty years of hard work.
[On his efforts to launch a cat into space]

F. A. Paradis de Moncrif:

Everything that moves, serves to interest and amuse a cat. He is convinced that nature is busying herself with his diversion; he can conceive of no other purpose in the universe.

Michel deMontaigne:

When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime for her more than she is to me?

Sidney Denham:

Cats do not go for a walk to get somewhere but to explore.

Alan Devoe:

We tie bright ribbons around their necks, and occasionally little tinkling bells, and we affect to think that they are as sweet and vapid as the coy name "kitty" by which we call them would imply. It is a curious illusion. For purring beside our fireplaces and pattering along our back fences, we have got a wild beast as uncowed and uncorrupted as any under heaven.

If he is comic, it is only because of the incongruity of so demure a look and so wild a heart.

Mike Deupree:

When a cat chooses to be friendly, it's a big deal, because a cat is picky.

Barbara L. Diamond:

Does the father figure in your cat's life ever clean the litter box? My husband claims that men lack the scooping gene.

If there were to be a universal sound depicting peace, I would surely vote for the purr.

Your cat may never have to hunt farther than the kitchen counter for its supper nor face a predator more fierce than the vacuum cleaner.

Charles Dickens:

What greater gift than the love of a cat?

Emily Dickinson:

She sights a Bird--she chuckles--
She flattens--then she crawls--
She runs without the look of feet--
Her eyes increase to Balls--

Blaga Dimitrova:

A cat stretches from one end of my childhood to the other.

Missy Dizick:

Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well.

Question: What about the way cats claw the upholstery?
Answer: Learn to like fringe!

Rev. Orlando Thomas Dobbin:

Confound the cats! All cats--alway--
Cats of all colours, black, white, grey;
By night a nuisance and by day--
Confound the cats!

Allen and Ivy Dodd:

There are people who reshape the world by force or argument, but the cat just lies there, dozing; and the world quietly reshapes itself to suit his comfort and convenience.

Mary Abigail Dodge:

What's virtue in a man can't be vice in a cat.

Francis Duffy:

Experience is valuable in most human endeavors, but the problem of getting a cat down out of a tree is new every time it arises.

Leo Dworken:

No amount of time can erase the memory of a good cat, and no amount of masking tape can ever totally remove his fur from your couch.

Warren Eckstein:

In the beginning, God created man, but seeing him so feeble, He gave him the cat.

Anthony Edwards:

Cats are independent, but completely loyal friends for life.

Deborah A. Edwards:

People that don't like cats haven't met the right one yet.

Monica Edwards:

Purring would seem to be, in her case, an automatic safety valve device for dealing with happiness overflow.

Albert Einstein:

You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.

The only escapes from the miseries of life are music and cats.

Cf. Albert Schweitzer

George Eliot:

I'm not one o' those as can see the cat i' the dairy, an' wonder what she's come after.

Who can tell what just criticisms Murr the cat may be passing on us beings of wider speculation?

T. S. Eliot:

When a cat adopts you there is nothing to be done about it except to put up with it until the wind changes.

Before a cat will condescend
To treat you as a trusted friend,
Some little token of esteem
Is needed, like a dish of cream

Ebenezer Elliott:

If 'twere not for my cat and dog, I think I could not live.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail? If you could look with her eyes, you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex dramas, with tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate.

Lee Entrekin:

Nature abhors a vacuum, but not as much as cats do.

Evan Esar:

The cat: an animal that' so unpredictable, you can never tell in advance how it will ignore you the next time.

A creature that never cries over spilt milk: a cat.

Anthony Henderson Euwer:

Some cats is blind,
And stone-deaf some,
But ain't no cat
Wuz ever dumb.

Chris Evert:

Cats are peaceful and tranquil - they bring calmness with their serene personalities.

Carol C. Faulkenberry:

Kitten: An irresistibly cuddly little creature destined to become a tomcat who sprays all over the house and rips the upholstery to shreds. One of the meanest tricks Mother Nature plays on human parents.

JIm Fiebig:

You own a dog; you feed a cat.

W. C. Fields:

The clever cat eats cheese and breathes down rat holes with baited breath.

Lenore Fleischer:

When you're special to a cat, you're special indeed - she brings to you the gift of her preference of you, the sight of you, the sound of your voice, the touch of your hand.

Gillian Flynn:

Sleep is like a cat: It comes to you only if you ignore it.

Dr. Bruce Fogle:

While you might see a cat on a hot tin roof, a dog on a hot tin roof would be yowling its head off.

If the claws didn't retract, cats would be like Velcro.

François Fossier:

Cats are forever.

Audra Foveo-Alba:

He swings from the chandelier, he paws my peanut butter, and he knocks over my drink in the most unfortunate places in the house - but I still love him like crazy. It's like a hairball in my heart.

Michael W. Fox, DVM:

They purr to signal a relaxed mood, And their purring may also help relax them and those around them who feel and hear their purring - like getting a nice massage in sound.

Benjamin Franklin:

The cat in gloves catches no mice.

George Freedley:

Four little Persians, but only one looked in my direction. I extended a tentative finger and two soft paws clung to it. There was a contented sound of purring, I suspect on both our parts.

H. G. Frommer:

The smart cat doesn't let on that he is.

Thomas Fuller:

Nothing's more playful than a young cat, nor more grave than an old one.

James Gallagher:

I can see stopping a car for a dog. But a cat? You squish a cat and go on.

Mavis Gallant:

"What is the appeal about cats?" he said kindly. "I've always wanted to know." "They don't care i you like them. They haven't the slightest notion of gratitude, and they never pretend. They take what you have to offer, and away they go."

Paul Gallico:

I think of a woman as something like myself.
[translating from cat language]

All you have to remember is Rule 1: When in doubt - wash.

Loneliness is comforted by the closeness and touch of fur to fur, skin to skin - or skin to fur.

Francis Galton:

The cat is the only non-gregarious domestic animal.

Michelle Gardner:

Don't think that I'm silly for liking it, I just happen to like the simple little things, and I love cats!

Georgina Strickland Gates:

Her function is to sit and be admired.

Theophile Gautier:

The cat is a dilettante in fur.

Dynasties of cats, as numerous as the dynasties of the Pharaohs, succeed each other under my roof. The memory of the cats we have lost fades like the memory of men.

Sometimes he sits at your feet looking into your face with an expression so gentle and caressing that the depth of this gaze startles you. Who can believe that there is no soul behind those luminous eyes!

It is a matter to gain the affection of a cat. He is a philosophical animal, tenacious of his own habits, fond of order and neatness, and disinclined to extravagant sentiment. He will be your friend, if he finds you worthy of friendship, but not your slave. He keeps his free will though he loves, and will not do for you what he thinks unreasonable; but if he once gives himself to you, it is with absolute confidence and fidelity of affection.

God has created the cat to give man the pleasure of caressing the tiger.

Delphine Gay:

The catlike man is one upon whom no tricks can be played with success.

W. L. George:

Cats know how to obtain food without labor, shelter without confinement, and love without penalties.

Alberto Giacometti:

It depends on what is in my house. If there was a cat, and my works, I would save the cat. A cat's life is more important than art.
[when asked which of his sculptures he would rescue from a fire]

Rumer Godden:

For a dyed-in-the-wool author nothing is as dead as a book once it is written...She is rather like a cat whose kittens have grown up. While they were a-growing she was passionately interested in them but now they seem hardly to belong to her - and probably she is involved with another batch of kittens as I am involved with other writing.

Bill Goldberg:

These guys [his cats Curly, Larry and Moe] entertain, love and are always there for me. I can never express how much I care for these three. All of my cats are adopted and all show their gratitude on a daily basis. I don't know where I would be without them.

James Gorman:

Cats are the ultimate narcissists. You can tell this by all the time they spend on personal grooming. Dogs aren't like this. A dog's idea of personal grooming is to roll in a dead fish.

Cats don't bark and act brave when they see something small in fur or feathers - they kill it. Dogs tend to bravado. They're braggarts. In the great evolutionary drama, the dog is Sergeant Bilko, the cat is Rambo.

Bruce Graham:

Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer.

Charlotte Gray:

After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference.

People meeting for the first time suddenly relax if they find they both have cats. And plunge into anecdote.

Paul Gray:

Cats were put into the world to disprove the dogma that all things were created to serve man.

One must love a cat on its own terms.

Patricia Dale Green:

Cats have always been associated with the Moon. Like the Moon, they come to life at night, escaping from humanity and wandering over housetops with their eyes beaming out through the darkness.

Dan Greenberg:

There is, incidently, no way of talking about cats that enables one to come off as a sane person.

Cats are dangerous companions for writers because cat watching is a near-perfect method of writing avoidance.

Gilbert Gude:

Maybe in the future we should add one more question to those we ask of presidential candidates - we should ask them where they stand on cats. Better still, we should demand to see the cats these candidates say they have raised, just to make sure we are not having the fur pulled over our eyes.

Eric Gurney:

The really great thing about cats is their endless variety. One can pick a cat to fit almost any kind of decor, color scheme, income, personality, mood. But under the fur; whatever color it may be, there still lies, essentially unchanged, one of the world's free souls.

Cat lovers can readily be identified. Their clothes always look old and well used. Their sheets look like bath towels and their bath towels look like a collection of knitting mistakes.

Bonni Elizabeth Hall (and Missycat):

When you come upon your cat, deep in meditation, staring thoughtfully at something that you can't see, just remember that your cat is, in fact, running the universe.

Elizabeth Hamilton:

Which is the more beautiful, feline movement or feline stillness?

Gail Hamilton:

What's virtue in a man can't be virtue in a cat.

Terri L. Haney:

Apparently, through scientific research, it has been determined that a cat's affection gland is stimulated by snoring, thus explaining my cat's uncontrollable urge to rub against my face at 2 a.m.

Okay, cats will never bring you pictures they've drawn in school, but they may give you a dead mouse. What parent could resist that gift?

William Hardwin:

Who hath a better friend than a cat?

Vicki Hearne:

Cats do not declare their love much; they enact it, by their myriad invocations of our pleasure.

Robert A. Heinlein:

How we behave towards cats here below determines out status in heaven.

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

Never try to out-stubborn a cat.

Dorothy Heller:

No catnip tree
Could offer bliss
Of magnitude
To equal this
As in a transport
Of delight
My spaced-out cougar
Spends the night
His nose in cozy
Rendezvous
With my malodorous
Jogging shoe.

Ernest Hemingway:

One cat just leads to another.

A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.

Oliver Herford:

Gather kittens while you may,
Time brings only sorrow;
And the kittens of today
Will be old cats tomorrow.

James Herriot:

Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.

Robert Herrick:

True calendars, as Pusses eare
Washt o're, to tell what change is neare.

A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.

Tay Hohoff:

There are few things in life more heartwarming than to be welcomed by a cat.

Barbara Holland:

There is no 'cat language.' Painful as it is for us to admit, they don't need one!

A catless writer is almost inconceivable. It's a perverse taste, really, since it would be easier to write with a herd of buffalo in the room than even one cat; they make nests in the notes and bite the end of the pen and walk on the typewriter keys.

Why then, if not to steal food, would a cat go up on the counter? Why did George Mallory try to go up on Mount Everest, which was quite a lot more trouble? Because it is there. Because of the view from the kitchen window. To lick the drips from the tap in the sink. To try to pry open the cupboards and see what's inside them, maybe to squeeze among the glassware. Or, on a rainy day, to look for small objects to knock onto the floor and see if they roll.

Lynn Hollyn:

Essentially, you do not so much teach your cat as bribe him.

If left to their own devices, felines tend to nap and nibble throughout the day and night, scarcely differentiating between the two.

Cat's eyes seem a bridge to a world beyond the one we know.

Alexis F. Hope:

If purring could be encapsulated, it'd be the most powerful anti-depressant on the pharmaceutical market.

The best kind of alarm clock is the purring kind.

Geoffrey Household:

I have noticed that what cats most appreciate in a human being is not the ability to produce food which they take for granted--but his or her entertainment value.

Susan Howatch:

It doesn't do to be sentimental about cats; the best ones don't respect you for it.

E. W. Howe:

The way to keep a cat is to try to chase it away.

Mildred R. Howland:

In his castle
He is King
And I his vassal.

Aldous Huxley:

If you want to be a psychological novelist and write about human beings, the best thing you can do is keep a pair of cats.

No man has ever dared to manifest his boredom so insolently as does a Siamese tomcat.

J. K. Huysmans:

In the matter of animals I love only cats, but I love them unreasonably for their qualities and in spite of their numerous faults. I have only one, but I could not live without a cat.

William Ralph Inge:

A cat can be trusted to purr when she is pleased, which is more than can be said for human beings.

Lesley Anne Ivory:

Cats are glorious creatures who must on no accounts be underestimated...Their eyes are fathomless depths of cat-world mysteries.

David James:

After extensive research, I have determined that cats do have nine lives. But this has made for some awkward moments on the autopsy table since you can never really tell which life is nine.

Jerome K. Jerome:

A cat's got her own opinion of human beings. She don't say much, but you can tell enough to make you anxious not to hear the whole of it.

Lawrence N. Johnson

The domestic cat seems to have greater confidence in itself than in anyone else.

Lillian Johnson:

Some people say man is the most dangerous animal on the planet. Obviously those people have never met an angry cat.

Michael Jordan:

Cats keep their cool, no matter what. Even when they do things like fall or lose their balance, they'll walk away with an attitude that seems to say, 'I meant to do that.'

Michael Joseph:

Is it yet another survival of jungle instinct, this hiding away from prying eyes at important times? Or merely a gesture of independence, a challenge to man and his stupid ways?

All cats are possessed of a proud spirit, and the surest way to forfeit the esteem of a cat is to treat him as an inferior being.

Keeba:

Never miss an opportunity to hold a kitten.

Garrison Keilor:

Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.

Hank Ketchum:

Meow is like aloha - it can mean anything.

Rudyard Kipling:

The Woman laughed and said, "You are the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to you. You are neither a friend nor a servant. You have sait it yourself. Go away and walk by yourself in all places alike."
Then Cat pretended to be sorry and said, "Must I never come into the Cave? Must I never sit by the warm fire? Must I never drink the warm white milk? You are very wise and beautiful. You should not be cruel even to a Cat."

I am not a friend and I am not a servant. I am the cat who walks by himself, and I wish to come into your cave.

Rob Kopack:

If cats could talk, they would lie to you.

Joseph Wood Krutch:

Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia.

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.

William Kunstler:

A dog is like a liberal. He wants to please everybody. A cat doesn't need to know that everybody loves him.

Dilys Laing:

I put down my book, The Meaning of Zen, and see the cat smiling into her fur as she delicately combs it with her rough pink tongue. Cat, I would lend you this book to study but it appears you have already read it. She looks up and gives me her full gaze. Don't be ridiculous, she purrs, I wrote it.

William S. Landor:

Cats, like men, are flatters.

Andrew Lang:

Of all animals, the cat alone attains to the comtemplative life. He regards the wheel of existence from without, like the Buddha.

Doug Larson:

The cat could very well be man's best friend but would never stoop to admitting it.

Jay Leno:

I've never understood why women love cats. Cats are independent, they don't listen, they don't come in when you call, they like to stay out all night, and when they're home they like to be left alone and sleep. In other words, every quality that women hate in a man, they love in a cat.

Elizabeth Lemarchand:

A black cat dropped soundlessly from a high wall, like a spoonful of dark treacle, and melted under a gate.

Doris Lessing:

If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then a cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.

Oh, cat; I'd say, or pray: be-ooootiful cat!Delicious cat! Exquisite cat! Satiny cat! Cat like a soft owl, cat with paws like moths, jeweled cat, miraculous cat!

Paul Leyhausen:

Friendship between cats can exist, but more or less in the same way that it can exist for a not very sociable man who spends his time in proviking others, and who, when asked why he does not have any friends, replies: "I would like to have them - but they are so ignoble!"

If a cat is creeping up on prey and realizes that another cat is watching, it will straighten up and act disinterested.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg:

He marveled at the fact that cats had two holes cut in their fur at precisely the spot where their eyes were.

Tina Lifford:

I love how independent and self-contained they are. I always feel it's an honor when one decides to let you into their world with a rub against the leg or a quick jump into your lap.

Abraham Lincoln:

No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.

I care not for a man's religion whose dog or cat is not the better for it.

I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.

Charles Lindbergh:

It's too dangerous a journey to risk the cat's life.
[Explaining why his kitten, Patsy, didn't accompany him on his legendary transatlantic flight.]

Konrad Lorenz:

The cat is a wild animal that inhabits the homes of humans.

Pierre Loti:

Cats are possessed of a shy, retiring nature, cajoling, haughty, and capricious, difficult to fathom. They reveal themselves only to certain favored individuals, and are repelled by the faintest suggestion of insult or even by the most trifling deception.

If by chance I seated myself to write, she very slyly, very tenderly, seeking protection and caresses, would softly take her place on my knee and follow the comings and goings of my pen -sometimes effacing, with an unintentional stroke of her paw, lines of whose tenor she disapproved.

H. P. Lovecraft:

The cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see.

E. V. Lucas:

I will admit to feeling exceedingly proud when any cat has singled me out for notice; for, of course, every cat is really the most beautiful woman in the room. That is part of their deadly fascination.

Sharon Lundblad:

A cat is a very special friend who comes into your life. When it comes it brings warmth, companionship, contentment and love. Whether it's long-haired, short-haired, pedigreed or "heinz" makes no difference.
A cat, though independent, has a way of letting you know that without you life just wouldn't be worthwhile.
If you're lucky enough to own a cat consider yourself one of life's winners because when you have a cat around you'll never be lonely; the sound of its purr will give you comfort, and as you hold it and pet it, stress will slip away.

John D. MacDonald:

If a cat can detect no self-advantage in what it is being told to do, it says the hell with it, and, if pressure is brought to bear, it will grow increasingly surly and irritable to the point where it is hopeless to continue.

Compton MacKenzie:

Nobody who is not prepared to spoil cats will get from them the reward they are able to give to those who do spoil them.

Larry Madrid:

If you put down food and the cat eats, it's hungry. If it doesn't, it isn't.

Steve Martin:

I gave my cat a bath the other day. He just sat there. Actually, I think he enjoyed it. It wasn't very fun for me, though. The fur kind of stuck to my tongue.

Groucho Marx:

A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.

James Mason:

Cats do not have to be show how to have a good time, for they are unfailing ingenious in that respect.

Donna McCrohan:

A cat can purr its way out of anything.

J. A. McIntosh:

If there is one spot of sun spilling onto the floor, a cat will find it and soak it up.

Rod McKuen:

There has never been a cat
Who couldn't calm me down
By walking slowly
Past my chair

Stuart McMillan:

A meow massages the heart.

Patricia McPherson:

I think it would be great to be a cat! You come and go as you please. People always feed and pet you. They don't expect much of you. You can play with them, and when you've had enough, you go away. You can pick and choose who you want to be around. You can't ask for more than that.

Ernest Menual:

The cat has too much spirit to have no heart.

These furry buggers are just deep, deep wells you throw all you emotions into.

Michael McGarel

The sun rose slowly, like a fiery furball coughed up uneasily onto a sky-blue carpet by a giant unseen cat.

Fernand Mery:

With the qualities of cleanliness, affection, patience, dignity, and courage that cats have, how many of us, I ask you, would be capable of becoming cats?

God made the cat in order that man might have the pleasure of caressing the lion.

Are cats lazy? Well, more power to them if they are. Which one of us has not entertained the dream of doing just as he likes, when and how he likes, and as much as he likes?

Leonard Michaels:

Looking at a cat, like looking at clouds or stars or the ocean, makes it difficult to believe there is nothing miraculous in this world.

Bette Midler:

Cats always seem so very wise, when staring with their half-closed eyes. Can they be thinking, "I'll be nice, and maybe she will feed me twice"?

George Mikes:

You can keep a dog; but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals.

A dog will flatter you but you have to flatter the cat.

Susanne Millen:

Only cat lovers know the luxury of fur-coated, musical hot water bottles that never go cold.

Jacquelyn Mitchard:

Cats regard people as warmblooded furniture.

St. George Mivart:

We cannot without becoming cats, perfectly understand the cat mind.

The smart cat doesn't let on that he is.

Harold Monro:

When the tea is brought at five o'clock
And all the neat curtains are drawn with care,
The little black cat with bright green eyes
Is suddenly purring there.

Lady Sydney Morgan:

The playful kitten with its pretty little tigerish gambole is infinitely more amusing than half the people one is obliged to live with in the world.

Morris the Cat:

Personally, I don't believe felines are a fad. We're here to stay.

Desmond Morris:

Artists like cats; soldiers like dogs.

Wright Morris:

Cats don't belong to people. They belong to places.

Penny Ward Moser:

When my cats aren't happy, I'm not happy. Not because I care about their mood but because I know they're just sitting there thinking up ways to get even.

Ogden Nash:

The trouble with a Kitten is that,
Eventually it becomes a Cat!

Michael Nelson:

Cats do care. For example they know instinctively what time we have to be at work in the morning and they wake us up twenty minutes before the alarm goes off.

Beverly Nichols:

Most of us rather like our cats to have a streak of wickedness. I should not feel quite easy in the company of any cat that walked about the house with a saintly expression.

John S. Nichols:

Cats aren't clean, they're just covered with cat spit.

Hazel Nicholson:

A cat is a puzzle for which there is no solution.

Alwin Nikolais:

A cat is never a presentation, but an innocent happening.

Ernest Nister:

But you must not think we allowed our kittens to behave badly. On the contrary, we tried all we could to teach them good manners..."Well, I told you kittens are mischievous," Nanny said. "And some are more mischievous than others."

Andre Norton:

Always the cat remains a little beyond the limits we try to set for him in our blind folly.

P. J. O'Rourke:

Cats are to dogs what modern people are to the people we used to have. Cats are slimmer, cleaner, more attractive, disloyal, and lazy. Cats are irresponsible and recognize no authority, yet are completely dependent on others for their material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the fun of it. In fact, cats possess so many of the same qualities as some people (expensive girlfriends, for instance) that it's often hard to tell the people and the cats apart.

Its easy to understand why the cat has eclipsed the dog as modern America's favorite pet. People like pets to possess the same qualities they do. Cats are irresponsible and recognize no authority, yet are completely dependent on others for their material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the fun of it.

Lynn M. Osband:

The mathematical probability of a common cat doing exactly as it pleases is the one scientific absolute in the world.

Camille Paglia:

Cats are autocrats of naked self-interest. They are both amoral and immoral, consciously breaking rules. Their ''evil'' look at such times is no human projection: the cat may be the only animal who savors the perverse or reflects upon it.

Thomas Paine:

Our character is what God and cats know of us.

Fannie Roach Palmer:

I always find it curious as to why I take such great pains to keep my cat's bowls clean when I know I'll look out the window and see her with a dead mouse in her mouth.

James Patterson:

Cats are like Baptists. You KNOW they raise hell,but you can never catch them at it.

Jane Pauley:

You cannot look at a sleeping cat and feel tense.

Mugsy Peabody:

A dog is a dog, a bird is a bird, and a cat is a person.

Elizabeth Peters:

The cat Bastet sat perched on the rim of the tub, watching me through slitted golden eyes. She was fascinated by baths. I suppose total immersion in water must have seemed to her a peculiar method of cleansing oneself.

The way to get on with a cat is to treat it as an equal - or even better, as the superior it knows itself to be.

Kathrine Palmer Peterson:

Cats are masters of sublime hisssstrionics.

Debbie Peterson:

I don't think it is so much the actual bath that most cats dislike; I think it's the fact that they have to spend a good part of the day putting their hair back in place.

You'll never need a lawn ornament if you have a cat in the yard.

Our words should be purrs not hisses.

Richard L. Peterson:

Each cat has a distinct purrsonality.

My cat is concerned with the economy because his favorite kitty kibbles are over $1.00 a pound. He figures that's close to $15.00 a pound in cat currency.

Cat scan: When a cat checks out a yard for prey.

William Lyon Phelps:

A cat pours his body on the floor like water. It is restful just to see him.

Pablo Picasso:

I want to create a cat like the real cats I see crossing the street, not like those you see in houses. They have nothing in common. The cat of the street has bristling fur. It runs like a fiend, and if it looks at you, you think it is going to jump in your face.

Dave Platt:

Managing senior programmers is like herding cats.

Edgar Allen Poe:

I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.

Arthur Ponsonby:

Cats have a curious effect on people. They seem to excite more extreme sentiments than any other animals. There are people who cannot remain in the room with a cat - who feel instinctively the presence of a cat even though they do not actually see it. On the other hand, there are people who, whatever they may be doing, will at once get up and fondle a cat immediately [when] they see it.

Eleanor H. Porter:

It's funny how dogs and cats know the inside of folks better than other folks do, isn't it?

Nan Porter:

If cats could talk, they wouldn't.

Paula Poundstone:

The problem with cats is that they get the exact same look on their faces whether they see a moth or an ax-murderer.

Helen Powers:

Your cat will never threaten your popularity by barking at three in the morning. He won't attack the mailman or eat the drapes, although he may climb the drapes to see how the room looks from the ceiling.

Terry Pratchett:

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.

Albert Pujois:

There are many lessons we can learn from our cats.

Eric S. Raymond:

It is widely grokked that cats have the hacker nature.

Jules Renard:

The ideal of calm exists in a sitting cat.

Francois Rene:

The cat lives alone, has no need of society, obeys only when she pleases, pretends to sleep that she may see the more clearly, and scratches everything on which she can lay her paw.

Agnes Repplier:

A kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing about like mad at nothing whatsoever, and generally stopping before it gets there.

A kitten is the most irresistible comedian in the world. Its wide-open eyes gleam with wonder and mirth. It darts madly at nothing at all, and then, as though suddenly checked in the pursuit, prances sideways on its hind legs with ridiculous agility and zeal.

Faith Resnick:

People that hate cats, will come back as mice in their next life.

Jules Reynard:

The ideal of calm exists in a sitting cat.

Judith Merkle Riley:

A cat improves the garden wall in sunshine, and the hearth in foul weather.

Hank Roll:

If cats seem distant and aloof it is because this is not their native planet - they are here just to visit and dominate.

Jean Jacques Rousseau:

Watch a cat when it enters a room for the first time. It searches and smells about, it is not quiet for a moment, it trusts nothing until it has examined and made acquaintance with everything.

Lenny Rubenstein:

Even if you have just destroyed a Ming vase, purr. Usually all will be forgiven.

HBS:

Give a cat a fish and you feed her for a day; teach a cat to fish and she will wait for you to feed her.

Cats are drawn to spaces which clearly aren’t meant for cats.

Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch:

Cats exercise...a magic influence upon highly developed men of intellect. This is why these long-tailed Graces of the animal kingdom, these adorable, scintillating electric batteries have been the favorite animal of a Mohammed, Cardinal Richlieu, Crebillon, Rousseau, Wieland.

Saki (H. H. Munro):

The cat is domestic only as far as suits its own ends; it will not be kennelled or harnessed nor suffer any dictation as to its goings out or comings in. Long contact with the human race has developed in it the art of diplomacy, and no Roman Catholic in medieval days knew better how to ingratiate himself with his surroundings than a cat with a saucer of cream on its mental horizon.

He seems the incarnation of everything soft and silky and velvety, without a sharp edge in his composition, a dreamer whose philosophy is sleep and let sleep.

William Salmon:

It is a crafty, subtle, watchful Creature, very loving and familiar with Mankind; but the mortal Enemy of the Rat, Mouse, and every sort of Bird, which it seizes on as its Prey.

Agnes A. Sandham:

Now, as you all know, there is nothing a cat dislikes so much as water; just watch your kitty shake her paws daintily when she steps into a puddle, and see how disgusted she is if a drop of water falls on her nose and back.

Val Schaffner:

Cats speak a subtle language in which few sounds carry many meanings, depending on how they are sung or purred. "Mnrhnh" means comfortable soft chairs. It also means fish. It means genial companionship...and the absence of dogs.

Bruce Schimmel:

The little furry buggers are just deep, deep wells you throw all your emotions into.

Albert Schweitzer:

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

Cf. Albert Einstein

Sir Walter Scott

Cats are a mysterious kind of folk. There is more passing in their minds than we are aware of.

William Shakespeare:

A harmless, necessary cat.

I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.

John Simon:

I have found my love of cats most helpful in understanding women.

Gary Smith:

Everything I know I learned from my cat: When you're hungry, eat. When you're tired, nap in a sunbeam. When you go to the vet's, pee on your owner.

Jan C. Snow:

Success in cat training is a matter of timing. Wait until the cat is walking toward you, then call him.

Robert Southey:

Ah! Little do you know how swiftly fly
The venomed darts of feline jealousy.

A kitten is a rosebud in the garden of the animal kingdom.

Robert Stearns:

Among animals, cats are the top-hatted, frock-coated statesmen going about their affairs at their own pace. Dogs are the peasants, dutifully plodding behind their leaders.

Since each of us is blessed with only one life, why not live it with a cat?

A human may go for a stroll with a cat; he has to walk a dog. The cat leads the way, running ahead, tail high, making sure you understand the arrangement. If you should happen to get ahead, the cat will never allow you to think it is following you. It will stop and clean some hard-to-reach spot, or investigate a suspicious movement in the grass; you will find yourself waiting a fidgeting like the lackey you are. But this is not annoying to cat lovers, who understand and appreciate a good joke, even when it is on them.

Robert A. Stern:

My cat speaks sign language with her tail.

If only cats grew into kittens.

Adlai Stevenson:

To escort a cat on a leash is against the nature of the cat.

It is in the nature of cats to do a certain amount of unescorted roaming.

Joyce Stranger:

I love cats. I love their grace and their elegance. I love their independence and their arrogance, and the way they lie and look at you, summing you up, surely to your detriment, with that unnerving, unwinking, appraising stare.

Linda Sunshine:

No other animal inspires such devotion as the cat.

Perhaps cats and writers simply go together because the cat is the perfect companion for the solitary, sedentary artist.

Sir Harry Swanson:

You can't own a cat. The best you can do is be partners.

Arthur Symons:

It is in their eyes that their magic resides.

Franny Syufy:

Once in awhile I receive an e-mail from someone who doesn't like cats, or has allergies or some other condition that prevents having them. I alway feel sorry for them because of the unique soul-expanding experience they are missing. I'm so grateful to have cats in my life that I can't imagine life without them. I truly believe that if there is a Heaven, it has to include cats.

Gladys Tabor:

When cat people get together they are as single-minded as vegetarians, or kelp and soybean addicts. For they can talk for hours about what their cats will and will not eat. Once you meet a cat lover you will pursue his or her cat's food predilections endlessly.

Hippolyte Taine:

I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.

Ann Taylor:

Dogs eat. Cats dine.

Jane Taylor:

I like little Pussy, her coat is so warm,
And if I don't hurt her she'll do me no harm.

Terry Teachout

Life with a cat is in certain ways a one-sided proposition. Cats are not educable; humans are. Moreover, cats know this. If you’re not willing to humor them, you might as well stick to dogs.

A. S. J. Tessimond:

Cats, no less liquid than their shadows,
Offer no angles to the wind.
They slip, dimished, neat, through loopholes
Less than themselves.

Helen Thomson:

One is never sure, watching two cats washing each other, whether it's affection, the taste, or a trial run for the jugular.

Henry David Thoreau:

What sort of philosophers are we who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?

A kitten is so flexible that she is almost double; the hind parts are equivalent to another kitten with which the forepart plays. She does not discover that her tail belongs to her until you tread on it.

Dr. Edward Lee Thorndike:

Never will you get a better psychological subject than a hungry cat.

James Thurber:

I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance - a sharp, vindictive glance.

Eckhart Tolle:

I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them cats.

Irving Townsend:

Another cat? Perhaps. For love there is also a season; its seeds must be resown. But a family cat is not replaceable like a wornout coat or a set of tires. Each new kitten becomes its own cat, and none is repeated. I am four cats old, measuring out my life in friends that have succeeded but not replaced one another.

Mark Twain:

If animals could speak the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow, but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.

Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.

A home without a cat, and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove its title?

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use.

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

A man’s treatment of a dog is no indication of the man’s nature, but his treatment of a cat is. It is the crucial test. None but the humane treat a cat well.

A cat is more intelligent than people believe, and can be taught any crime.

I simply can't resist a cat, particularly a purring one. They are the cleanest, cunningest, and most intelligent things I know, outside of the girl you love, of course.

When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade without further introduction.

While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats.

John Updike:

A computer and a cat are somewhat alike -- they both purr, and like to be stroked, and spend a lot of the day motionless. They also have secrets they don't necessarily share.

Jeff Valdez:

Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.

Carl Van Vechten:

It is perfectly possible (a fact which I have proved scores of times myself) to work not only with a cat in the room, but with a cat on one's shoulder or in one's lap. In a drafty room, indeed, the cat makes a superior kind of paperweight!

Cynthia E. Varnado:

It is impossible to keep a straight face in the presence of one or more kittens.

Carl van Vechten:

A cat will sit washing his face within two inches of a dog in the most frantic state of barking rage, if the dog be chained.

The cat seldom interferes with other people's rights. His intelligence keeps him from doing many of the fool things that complicate life.

The cat is the only animal without visible means of support who still manages to find a living in the city.

An ordinary kitten will ask more questions than any five year old.

Jules Verne:

I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.

Robert J. Vogel:

A dog is a man's best friend. A cat is a cat's best friend.

Louis Wain:

I have myself found, the result of many years enquiry and study, that all people who keep cats do not suffer from those petty ailments which all flesh is heir to.

Intelligence in the cat is underrated.

A mouse in the paws is worth two in the pantry.

Charles Dudley Warner:

Calvin's life seens to me a fortunate one, for it was natural and unforced. He ate when he was hungry, slept when he was sleepy, and enjoyed existence to the very tips of his toes and the end of his expressive and slow-moving tail.

He liked companionship, but he wouldn't be petted, or fussed over, or sit in anyone's lap a moment; he always extricated himself from such familiarity with dignity and with no show of temper. If there was any petting to be done, however, he chose to do it. Often he would sit looking at me, and then, moved by a delicate affection, come and pull at my coat and sleeve until he could touch my face with his nose, and then go away contented.

Barbara Webster:

One reason we admire cats is for their proficiency in one-upmanship. They always seem to come out on top, no matter what they are doing, or pretend they do.

Arthur Weigall:

If I called her she would pretend not to hear, but would come a few moments later when it could appear that she had thought of doing so first.

John Weitz:

Even overweight, cats instinctively know the cardinal rule: when fat, arrange yourself in slim poses.

Rosalind Welcher:

No one can have experienced to the fullest the true sense of achievement and satisfaction who have never pursued and successfully caught his tail.

Rebecca West:

Did St. Francis really preach to the birds? Whatever for? If he really liked birds he would have done better to preach to the cats.

Alfred North Whitehead:

If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.

Oscar Wilde:

Dawn follows Dawn and Nights grow old and all the while this curious cat
Lies crouching on the Chinese mat with eyes of satin rimmed with gold.

Mary Wilkins:

Cats love one so much - more than they will allow. But they have so much wisdom they keep it to themselves.

George F. Will:

Like a graceful vase, a cat, even when motionless, seems to flow.

The phrase "domestic cat" is an oxymoron.

Robin Williams:

Cats only pretend to be domesticated if they think there's a bowl of milk in it for them.

Robley Wilson, Jr.:

It is remarkable, in cats, that the outer life they reveal to their master is one of perpetual confident boredom. All they betray of the hidden life is by means of symbol; if it were not for the recurring evidence of murder - the disemboweled rabbits, the headless flickers, the torn squirrels - we should forever imagine our cats to be simple pets whose highest ambition is to sleep in the best soft chair, whose worst crime is to sharpen their claws on carpeting.

Helen M. Winslow:

Women, poets, and especially artists, like cats; delicate natures only can realize their sensitive nervous systems.

Cats find malicious amusement in doing what they know they are not wanted to do, and that with an affectation of innocence that materially aggravates their deliberate offense.

P. G. Wodehouse:

The trouble with cats is that they've got no tact.

Cats as a class, have never completely got over the snootiness caused by that fact that in Ancient Egypt they were worshipped as gods.

The real objection to the great majority of cats is their insufferable air of superiority.

Jack Wright:

You can visualize a hundred cats. Beyond that, you can't. Two hundred, five hundred, it all looks the same.
[Jack Wright of Kingston, ON is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "owner" of the most cats at one time - 689. That's a lot of masters!]

Steven Wright:

Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.

Wynonna:

Each cat I have reminds me of unconditional love. No matter what's going on in my professional life, I know that with my animals I'm always #1! If I'm with my cats I'm also with God.

Deng Xiaoping:

I don't care what color the cat is, as long as it catches the rat.

W. B. Yeats:

The eyes of a cat will wax and wane with the phases of the moon.

Kathy Young:

Cats may sense early on that you don't like paw prints on your butter, but they will jump onto any surface in the home as long as no one sees it happen.

Cats never feel threatened. They are genetically incapable of accepting that anyone could possibly dislike anything as perfect as a cat.

Cats can derive their nutrition from the air they breathe until you get the message that the Fish Fin Buffet you put in their bowl three days ago will never be acceptable.

You must set down all the rules to your cat at the beginning of your relationship. You cannot add rules as you go along. Once these rules are set, you must never, under any circumstances, break any of them. Dare to break a rule, and you will never live it down. Trust me.

PROVERBS:

If stretching were wealth, the cat would be rich. - African

A cat is a lion to a mouse. - Albanian

A cat bitten once by a snake dreads even rope. - Arabian

The cat was created when the lion sneezed. - Arabian

If you stared deep into a cat's eyes, you would be able to see into the world of spirits. - British

All cats love fish but fear to wet their paws. - Chinese

A cat assures its owner of good luck. - Chinese

Happy owner, happy cat. Indifferent owner, reclusive cat. - Chinese

He who rides the tiger finds it difficult to dismount. - Chinese

You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats. - Colonial American

Those who dislike cats will be carried to the cemetery in the rain. - Dutch

An overdressed woman is like a cat dressed in saffron. - Egyptian

In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats. - English

A cat in grass is a tiger in the jungle. - English

Dogs remember faces, cats places. - English

The cat has nine lives - three for playing, three for straying, and three for staying. - English

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses. - English

When the cat winketh, little knows the mouse what the cat thinketh. - English

Handsome cats and fat dungheaps are the sign of a good farmer - French

The dog may be wonderful prose, but only the cat is poetry. - French

Books and cats and fair-haired little girls make the best furnishing for a room.- French

If cats had wings there would be no ducks in the lake. - Indian

That cat that has its mouth burned by drinking hot milk will not drink even buttermilk without first blowing upon it. - Indian

A cat is a lion in a jungle of small bushes. - Indian

The cat is magical and the bringer of good luck. - Indian

Beware of people who dislike cats. - Irish

Nature breaks through the eyes of the cat. - Irish

To kill a cat brings seventeen years of bad luck. - Irish superstition

To please himself only the cat purrs. - Irish

Who would believe such pleasure from a wee ball o' fur? - Irish

It is better to feed one cat than many mice. - Norwegian proverb

When the cat and mouse agree, the grocer is ruined. - Persian

A house without a dog or a cat is the house of a scoundrel. - Portugese

The master orders the man, the man orders the cat, and the cat orders her tail. - Portuguese

It is better to be a mouse in a cat's mouth than a man in a lawyer's hands. - Spanish

The cat always leaves a mark on his friend. - Spanish

When moving to a new home, always put the cat through the window instead of the door, so that it will not leave. - U.S. Superstition

A cat's a cat and that's that. - U.S. folk saying

A cat is a tiger that is fed by hand. - Proverb

ANONYMOUS:

There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast.

There are many intelligent species in the universe. They are all owned by cats.

Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are God.

We humans are indeed fortunate if we happen to be chosen to be owned by a cat.

No Heaven will ever Heaven be
Unless my cats are there to welcome me.

If you take even one of a cat's nine lives, it will haunt you forever.

I got rid of my husband. The cat was allergic.

My husband said it was him or the cat. I miss him sometimes.

Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.

Never feed your cat anything that doesn't match the carpet.

Or as Schrodinger's wife once said, "What did you do to the cat? It looks half dead."

Cat's motto: No matter what you've done wrong, always try to make it look as if the dog did it.

To respect a cat is the beginning of the aesthetic sense.

The visionary chooses a cat; the man of concrete a dog. Hamlet must have kept a cat. Platonists, or cat lovers, include sailors, painters, poets, and pickpockets. Aristotelians, or dog lovers, include soldiers, football players, and burglars.

Free to a good home - female cat or husband.
Husband says either he goes or cat goes.
Cat fixed, husband isn't.
       - Ad in the Flint, Michigan Weekly World News

Don't use cats - they'll screw up your data.
       - Anonymous science professor to student

Froward women were made from cats, just as most virtuous, industrious matrons were developed from beer.

I would have in my house - a reasonable woman - a cat moving among the books.

Of all the creatures in the world, cats an' women has the hardest time.

A cat knows you are the key to his happiness...a man thinks he is.

If to her share some feline errors fall,
Look in her face, and you'll forgive them all.

Here lies a pretty cat:
Its mistress, who never loved anyone,
Loved it madly;
Why bother to say so? Everyone can see it.
       - Epitaph on tombstone of cat, with full-relief detail of the deceased

Outside of a cat, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a cat, it's too dark to read.
       - Sign at Lilac Hedge Bookshop, Norwich, VT

Dogs have owners, cats have staff.

Avoid dogs whenever you can. Remember - Cats are poetry in motion. Dogs are gibberish in neutral.

Cat: a pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs, and patronizes human beings.

All children left unattended will be given a free kitten.
       - Sign in a veterinarian's office

Never hold a dustbuster and a cat at the same time.
       - from Advice from Kids

There was an old bulldog named Caesar,
Who went for a cat just to tease her;
    But she spat and she spit,
    Till the old bulldog quit.
Now when poor Caesar sees her, he flees her.

You know when people see a cat's litter box, they always say, "Oh, have you got a cat?" Just once I want to say, "No, it's for company!"

Humans: No fur, no paws, no tail. They run away from mice. They never get enough sleep. How can you help but love such an absurd animal?
       - An anonymous cat on Homo sapiens

The purity of a person's heart can be quickly measured by how he or she regards cats.

Blessed are those who love cats, for they shall never be lonely.

When I'm in the doghouse, my cats still come to visit.

A rose has thorns, a cat has claws; certainly both are worth the risk.

There are hundreds of good reasons for having a cat, but all you need is one.

A cat is always at the wrong side of the door.

A person who manages to understand a cat is qualified to understand most anything else.

Buy a dog a toy, and he'll play with it forever. Buy a cat a present, and it will play with the wrapper for 10 minutes.

Dogs have owners. Cats have staff.

Anything on the ground is a cat toy. Anything not there yet, will be.

Cats have amazingly keen hearing but go conveniently deaf when you call.

If human, cats might play solitare, but they would never sit around with the gang and a few six-packs watching Monday Night Football.
      from Time Magazine, Dec.7, 1981

Cats have incredible vision - but they never see your flaws.

Cats are better than any vice. They're not fattening, dangerous, or expensive. However, they can be addictive.

A cat makes all the difference between coming home to an empty house and coming home.

Owning a cat is a good forerunner of marriage. You learn that you cannot control another living being, or expect him/her to do everything you want.

I'm not much of a cook. My favorite thing to make from scratch is a purr.

Nine lives added to my one life makes a perfect 10.

If you want a kitten, start out by asking for a horse.
       - from Advice from Kids

Cats always land on their feet. Dogs won't even let you throw them.

A cat will wait until you've read your morning paper before tearing it to shreds.

Some people see the glass as half empty, some as half full. I look for the cat who drank the water.

Life is hard. Soften yours with a cat.

Said a miserly peer at the Abbey,
"I fear I shall look rather shabby,
    For I've replaced my ermine,
    Infested with vermin,
With the fur of my dear defunct tabby."

Happiness does not light gently on my shoulder like a butterfly. She pounces on my lap, demanding that I scratch behind her ears.

The cat stands alone, distinct - outindividualizing every individual.
      - from A Ship of Solace

Owning a cat is like reading a good novel - just when you think you know the main character, she'll surprise you on the very next page.

A thing of beauty, strength, and grace lies behind that whiskered face.

My dog and cat have both run into the closed back door at full speed. Neither qualifies for Animal Mensa.
      - from The Vent in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Cats are like music. It's foolish to try to explain their worth to those who don't appreciate them.

Cats whiskers are so sensitive, they can find their way through the narrowest crack in a broken heart.

If you want to know the character of a man, find out what his cat thinks of him.

Every life should have nine cats.

It's really the cat's house. I just pay the mortgage.

A cat is an example of sophistication minus civilization.

A cat which is kept as a household pet may properly be considered a thing of value. It ministers to the pleasures of its owner and serves with honor.

We have a friend who hates cats. Every time he comes to the house the cat sits on his knee.

The beautiful cat endures and endures.
      -Grave inscription from Thebes

Cats know how we feel; they just don't give a damn.

For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by a cat.

It's always blackest just before you step on the cat.

Cats are like potato chips. You can never have just one.

If you can remember how many cats you have, you don't have enough.

Cats are so unpredictable. You just never know how they'll ignore you next.

If you throw a cat out a car window, does it become kitty litter?

Never underestimate the power of a purr.

Long ago, there lived a creature with a voice like a vacuum cleaner. We know little about it, but we do know that it ate cats.

There may be more than one way to skin a cat, but you get only one try per cat.

Cat, I'm a kitty-cat, and I dance, dance, dance, and I dance, dance, dance.

There was an old spinster from Fife,
Who had never been kissed in her life:
    Along came a cat,
    And she said, "I'll kiss that!"
But the cat meowed: "Not on your life!

Cats understand our feelings. They don't care, but they understand.

A cat knows exactly what you are, and treats you accordingly.

Children are like cats, they can tell when you don't like them. That's when they come over and violate your body space.

Everyone *knows* cats are on a higher level of existence. These silly humans are just too big-headed to admit their inferiority.
Just think what a nicer world this would be if it were controlled by cats.
You wouldn't see cats having waste disposal problems.
They're neat.
They don't have sexual hangups. A cat gets horny, it does something about it.
They keep reasonable hours. You *never* see a cat up before noon.
They know how to relax. Ever heard of a cat with an ulcer?
What are the chances of a cat starting a nuclear war? Pretty neglible. It's not that they can't, they just know that there are much better things to do with one's time. Like lie in the sun and sleep. Or go exploring the world.

When the rat laughs at the cat, there is a hole. The rat has not power to call the cat to account. The rat does not go to sleep in the cat's bed.

There is a proof for God's existance: (S)he made cats.

I have noticed that what cats most appreciate in a human being is not the ability to produce food which they take for granted, but his or her entertainment value.

When food mysteriously goes,
The chances are that Pussy knows
More than she leads you to suppose.

Some people have cats and go on to lead normal lives.

Cats leave pawprints on our hearts.

Every dog has his day - but the nights are reserved for the cats.

Know of a quote that ain't here? Please let me know a cyberkedi "apiece" hotmail period com.

Enjoy some Kitty Trivia and Humor! Plus a little feline activism.

Expand your mind with The Wit and Wisdom of Albert Einstein.

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