“Once [a cat] has given its love, what absolute confidence, what fidelity of affection! It will make itself the companion of your hours of work, of loneliness, or of sadness. It will lie the whole evening on your knee, purring and happy in your society, and leaving the company of creatures of its own society to be with you.”
― Théophile Gautier, “Ménagerie intime’
“I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.”
― Jules Verne
“Cats and monkeys – monkeys and cats – all human life is there!”
― Henry James, “The Madonna of the Future”
“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.”
― Ernest Hemingway
“A cat’s rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering.”
― William S. Burroughs, “The Cat Inside”
“And how do you know that you’re mad? “To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad. You grant that?” I suppose so, said Alice. “Well then,” the Cat went on, “you see a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags it’s tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.”
― Lewis Carroll, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass”
“when I am feeling
low
all i have to do is
watch my cats
and my
courage
returns”
― Charles Bukowski
“Are cats strange animals or do they so resemble us that we find them curious as we do monkeys?”
― John Steinbeck, “The Winter of Our Discontent”
“Everyone has noticed the taste which cats have for pausing and lounging between the two leaves of a half-shut door. Who is there who has not said to a cat, “Do come in!” There are men who, when an incident stands half-open before them, have the same tendency to halt in indecision between two resolutions, at the risk of getting crushed through the abrupt closing of the adventure by fate. The over-prudent, cats as they are, and because they are cats, sometimes incur more danger than the audacious.”
― Victor Hugo, “Les Misérables”
“The cats sleep for days at a time and make love from the first star until dawn. Their pleasures are fierce, and their sleep impenetrable. And they know that the body has a soul in which the soul has no part.”
― Albert Camus, “A Happy Death”
