“Many people feel more complete with a cat in their life, and I would not be surprised if cats felt the same way about us. I know that if I disappeared from the lives of my five cats, they would not be as happy as before. I know, because they wait for me to go on walks along the beach, though they could perfectly well go on their own. When I am with them, they react in such a strong way, gamboling, racing ahead of me, and then flopping down in my path, that it is obvious they derive great pleasure from my company. I find it hard to believe, though, that they could possibly enjoy my company as much as I enjoy theirs. This is not surprising: we domesticated cats for our benefit. While they get something from it, we probably got the better deal.”
Source: The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats (2002), Ch. 3
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Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson 42
American writer and activist 1941Related quotes

“When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?”
Quand je me joue à ma chatte, qui sait si elle passe son temps de moi, plus que je ne fais d'elle.
Book II, Ch. 12
The 1595 edition adds: “We entertain each other with reciprocal monkey tricks. If I have my time to begin or to refuse, so has she hers.” As quoted in Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am https://books.google.it/books?id=y8Drc-QghEIC&pg=PT21, trans. David Wills, Fordham University Press, 2008.
Essais (1595), Book II

“I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.”
Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 2

Were cows so different from cats and dogs that there were two moral standards, one that applies to cows, another that applies to cats and dogs? Were pigs so different? Were any of the animals I ate so different?
Source: Empty Cages (2004), Ch. 2


Song lyrics
Source: "Cat Scratch Fever" on Cat Scratch Fever (1977)

“When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?”
Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)