quotations about cats
Cats are like tiny, judgmental camels. Owing to their super-efficient kidneys, the "treasure" they bury in the litter box has much less water in it than what we flush down the toilet. Their kidneys are so good that a cat can get all the water they need from a hearty meat-based diet. They can even drink seawater and re-hydrate themselves with no ill effects.
BRITTNEY BOROWLEC
Massive Science, July 16, 2019
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 mind. They realize that, whether they like it or not, they are simply going to have to put up with what to them are excruciatingly slow mental processes, that we humans have embarrassingly low I.Q.'s, and that probably because of these defects, we have an infuriating inability to understand, let alone follow, even the simplist and most explicit of directions.
CLEVELAND AMORY
The Cat Who Came for Christmas
We have to afford cats the same sort of dignity we do with a human.
NICK DOUGLAS
"How to Get a Cat to Like You", lifehacker, August 22, 2018
Men prefer pets they can control, like dogs. They can't handle that "get stuffed" stare from a cat.
CELIA HAMMOND
Evening Standard Magazine, Mar. 26, 1999
Cats kept their secrets; they yielded to no one.
ELIZABETH REDFERN
Music of the Spheres
The naming of cats is a difficult matter;
It isn't just one of your holiday games.
You may think at first, I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you a cat must have three different names.
T. S. ELIOT
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Confront a cat with something he has never seen before and his first reaction will almost invariably be one not of fear but of curiosity.
MICHAEL JOSEPH
Cat's Company
Cats are like guests you're never sure of and are always trying to please.
MARY WELLS LAWRENCE
A Big Life in Advertising
Cat said, "I am not a friend, and I am not a servant. I am the Cat who walks by himself."
RUDYARD KIPLING
Just So Stories
What a luxury a cat is, the moments of shocking and startling pleasure in a day, the feel of the beast, the soft sleekness under your palm, the warmth when you wake on a cold night, the grace and charm even in a quite ordinary workaday puss. Cat walks across your room, and in that lonely stalk you see leopard or even panther, or it turns its head to acknowledge you and the yellow blaze of those eyes tells you what an exotic visitor you have here, in this household friend, the cat who purrs as you stroke, or rub his chin, or scratch his head.
DORIS LESSING
The Old Age of El Magnifico
The self-esteem of a cat is extraordinary.
CHRISTIAN MORGENSTERN
Levels
Cats ... have a natural affinity for people who don't like them--very perverse creatures.
ALAN GOLDSMITH
Waldo Chicken Wakes the Dead
The moral charm of the cat consists in one's complete inability to fathom their minds and motives. A dog's mind is generally a clear and straightforward affair. You can never discover what strange things are passing in a cat's brain. You know that a dog is looking up to you, following your whims and reflecting your fancies--is, in a word, intellectually dependent upon his master. Not so with a cat. The cat is never the servant of your hand and eye. She may deign to play with you, but it is always with reserves complete enough to save her own individuality and freedom of action. The cat plays with you as much as you with her.
"The Cat in Literature,"
Living Age, vol. 217
Cats ... are like four-legged poster children for OCD.
CAROLINE KNAPP
The Merry Recluse
Cats are autocrats of naked self-interest.
CAMILLE PAGLIA
Sexual Personae
A cat is not merely diverted by everything that moves, but is convinced that all nature is occupied exclusively with catering to her diversion.
FRANÇOIS AUGUSTE PARADIS DE MONCRIF
attributed, The Fireside Sphinx
If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.
DORIS LESSING
On Cats
You know what cats are like--fast on their feet and not very grateful.
HELEN MAGEE
What's French for Help
Through all this horror my cat stalked unperturbed. Once I saw him monstrously perched atop a mountain of bones, and wondered at the secrets that might lie behind his yellow eyes.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"The Rats in the Walls"
Cats invented self-esteem.
ERMA BOMBECK
attributed, The Cat Fanatic