Cats Quotes

“Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

“For he will do
As he do do
And there's no doing anything about it!

- The Rum Tum Tugger”
― T.S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

“But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover--
But the cat himself knows, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.”
― T.S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

“Then the cow asked:
"What is a mirror?"
"It is a hole in the wall," said the cat. "You look in it, and there you see the picture, and it is so dainty and charming and ethereal and inspiring in its unimaginable beauty that your head turns round and round, and you almost swoon with ecstasy.”
― Mark Twain, Short Stories

“If you hold a cat by the tail, you learn things you can't learn any other way.--Mark Twain”
― Tony-Paul de Vissage

“It's 8a.m. and time to rest
It's 10a.m. and time to relax
It's noon and time for repose
It's 3p.m. and time for shut-eye
It's 6p.m. and time for siesta
It's 9p.m. and time to slumber
It's midnight and time to snooze
It's 4a.m. and time to hang upside down from your bedroom ceiling, screaming.”
― Francesco Marciuliano

“Are these black cats like the hare?"

"No. They're smaller; they only want me to play with them. Fly away with them to a place on the other side of the moon. There's a garden there, all silvery-gold, and the cats and hares dance and jump round and round. They can jump so much farther than they can on earth; it's like flying, and they love it so. Sometimes I've felt as if I'd like to dance and jump through the air too, they looked so happy, and I've thought maybe if I did I wouldn't be afraid any more, but when I look they're all dancing round a Figure that sits still in the middle of the garden. A big black Figure with a hood on. And It hasn't got any face. Its face is so awful that It keeps it covered. And then I get so terribly afraid. And everything stops."

"And you see all that in the picture?"

"I don't know." She hesitated again. "I think it's partly dreams. After I've thought they were at the windows - the cats and the big hare. They sit there and watch, you see, after I've gone to sleep. But they don't come often. I don't usually know what's there."

She came closer and whispered, her blue eyes earnest and weird, "I don't think it's an animal hare. I think it's Aunt Sarai's hare, that maybe it came from hell. It isn't swearing to say that word just as the name of a place, is it? That's why people used to be so scared of witches' black cats, isn't it, because they thought they weren't earth-cats, they were from the devil? Mother says there isn't any hell or any witches. But Aunt Sarai was a witch; that's why she can come back. I think they've all been witches here; the house is mad because mother wouldn't be; that's why it wants me now."

Carew said, "It was all dreams, Betty. There is no hell. There is no garden on the other side of the moon. It's a dead world, full of volcanic craters, with no air for anything to grow in or breathe. A hare frightened you and, being nervous, you've had nightmares about it - pictures that fear paints on your mind just as an artist would on canvas, with paints and brushes.

"Every dream is now a movie we make for ourselves in our sleep...”
― Evangeline Walton, Witch House

“If you make a fool of yourself in front of a cat, he will sneer at you, if you are sober; he will leave the room if you are drunk. If you make a fool of yourself in front a dog, he will make a fool of himself, too.”
― Chuck Jones

“The cat arrived with a bottle of Scotch.”
― Christopher S. Wren, The Cat Who Covered the World: The Adventures Of Henrietta And Her Foreign Correspondent

“Daisy didn't just change our lives, she changed our destiny.”
― Maryam Faresh, Daisy

“[At the scene of a murder]

The cats' bloodthirst was normal; it was the way God had made them. They were hunters, they killed for food and to train their young--well maybe sometimes for sport. But this violent act by some unknown human had nothing to do with hunting--for a human to brutally maim one of the own kind out of rage or sadism or greed was, to Joe and Dulcie (the cats), a shocking degradation of the human condition. To imagine that vicious abandon in a human deeply distressed Dulcie; she did not like thinking about humans that way.”
― Shirley Rousseau Murphy, Cat in the Dark

“Neither man nor any animal can enjoy life to the full without taking some risks to life or limb.”
― Philip Brown, Uncle Whiskers

“Don't judge a cat by its coat.”
― Magdalena VandenBerg

“It is natural for our unamiable sex to dislike the creatures, for you ladies lavish so many caresses upon them.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“Even gods decay. Like, in 1890 somebody sold off thousands of mummified Ancient Egyptian sacred cats - _for fertilizer_. Get the point? Constancy isn't.”
― Jonathan Gash, Jade Woman

“So Nikki came aboard as Jaqueline's spare cat, presumably in case our prime cat, Eliza, goes on vacation, takes industrial action, or requests a personal day.”
― Christopher S. Wren, The Cat Who Covered the World: The Adventures Of Henrietta And Her Foreign Correspondent

“Dewey sent him, I thought, when I saw those eyes.”
― Vicki Myron, Dewey's Nine Lives: The Legacy of the Small-Town Library Cat Who Inspired Millions

“Yet he could not enjoy the walk. In the morning especially a bougainvillaea looks handmade, lawns are always lawns, and it is true indeed that dogs smell fear. Cats don't say.”
― Douglas Woolf, Wall to Wall

“Sometimes she could swear that she saw, in Joe Grey's eyes, a judgment far too perceptive, a watchfulness too aware and intense for any cat.
Charlie didn't understand what it was about those two [cats]. Both had a presence that set them apart from other felines.
Maybe she just knew them better. Maybe all cats had that quality of awareness, when you knew them.”
― Shirley Rousseau Murphy, Cat in the Dark

“Me dan miedo los gatos blancos porque son igual de malos que los gatos negros, pero no hay manera de mirarlos y que no te apetezca acariciarlos.”
― Chus Fernandez, Paracaidistas

“If life gives you the wobbles make jelly.”
― Magdalena VandenBerg