quotations about cats
Finding a cat--or having a cat find you--can change your world as much as marriage, divorce, love, death, or even winning the lottery can, and sometimes more.
KINKY FRIEDMAN
foreword, The Power of Purrs
Cats are like Thoreau. You cannot explain them.
DAN SKLAR
Bicycles
Beware of the night, child. All cats are black in the dark.
JEAN GENET
The Blacks
Mystery has always shrouded the feline. The cat is a powerful, agile hunter moving silently through the night, stalking its prey; or a calculating thinker that has incredible patience when setting its trap, yet is impatient with unwanted acts of affection from humans. The cat is a creature of great beauty, defying gravity with athletic feats and supreme acts of grace. From the ancient Egyptians to the Shakespearian era and into modern times legends of the cat have grown into extraordinary myths.
ALEXANDRA POWE ALLRED
Cat's Most Wanted
In ancient times, cats were worshipped as gods. They have never forgotten this.
ANONYMOUS
If dogs are like high school, cats are like a really tough Ph.D. program.
SIOBHAN ADCOCK
30 Things Everyone Should Know How to Do Before Turning 30
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
JEAN COCTEAU
attributed, How to Hide Your Cat from the Landlord
Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reason.
ROBERTSON DAVIES
"mehitabel"
A cat ... plays for her own enjoyment, in a self-contained way, with no desire to share. Shut her up alone, and a ball, a fringe, or a looped piece of string is enough to make her give herself up to silent and graceful sport. While she is playing she does not say, "Man, I'm so awfully glad I've got you here!" She will play beside the bed of a corpse.
KAREL CAPEK
Intimate Things
The uncertainty of cats has been thrown in their teeth, but to the true cat-lover this uncertainty is a most attractive trait. One may live in a house for six months with a cat and never receive from it a single kindly word or look. It will perhaps sit quietly on your lap as long as you hold it there, for it hates struggling; but the moment your vigilance is relaxed down it jumps, and licks itself carefully, as a sign that your caresses are anything but agreeable. It will purr when you go down on your knees on the hearthrug and rub it under the chin; but it is purring at itself, not you. Your hand is only a stroking machine. It is not in the least afraid of you, but in a hundred ways it shows that it has no use for your caresses, and that it would rather not be encumbered by unasked attention. Yet, suddenly, and without any cause, this very same cat will one day become, for half an hour or an hour, your dearest friend.
"The Cat in Literature,"
Living Age, vol. 217
It is a very onconvenient habit of kittens ... that, whatever you say to them, they always purr.
LEWIS CARROLL
Through the Looking Glass
Cats are like insects. They should be left outside to clean up the garbage.
MICHAEL MEWSHAW
Playing Away
Anyone who has owned many cats in long succession can define his or her life as a series of furry episodes.
ROGER CARAS
A Celebration of Cats
Some cats are like mystics or cloistered esthetes, finding waking life of no interest and entering it only for necessities such as eating, while others ... do not disdain the secular pastimes of hunting, lurking, and exploring.
VAL SCHAFFNER
The Algonquin Cat
Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with a cot it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.
MARK TWAIN
notebook, Feb. 1894
Giving the cat a name, like marriage, is not an easy thing. Soon I experienced the selection of name for a baby, a dog, a book, a warship, a sports team, even the king, the pope or a hurricane is just child's play compared to the selection of the cat's name.
CLEVELAND AMORY
The Cat Who Came for Christmas
Cats are like statesmen--they prefer places to persons.
EDMUND HODGSON YATES
Two
I've found that the way a person feels about cats--and the way they feel about him or her in return--is usually an excellent gauge by which to measure a person's character.
P.C. CAST & KRISTIN CAST
Marked
I cannot agree that it should be the declared public policy of Illinois that a cat visiting a neighbor's yard or crossing the highways is a public nuisance. It is in the nature of cats to do a certain amount of unescorted roaming. Many live with their owners in apartments or other restricted premises, and I doubt if we want to make their every brief foray an opportunity for a small game hunt by zealous citizens--with traps or otherwise.... To escort a cat abroad on a leash is against the nature of the cat, and to permit it to venture forth for exercise unattended into a night of new dangers is against the nature of the owner. Moreover, cats perform useful service, particularly in rural areas, in combating rodents--work they necessarily perform alone and without regard for property lines.
ADLAI STEVENSON
veto message, Apr. 23, 1949
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?
MARK TWAIN
Pudd'nhead Wilson