Quotes about cat (739 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Sorry I'm late guys, a black cat crossed my path so I had to go the long way.”

Hatake Kakashi book Naruto

Way , Guy , Cats

“Cat: Where are you going?
Alice: Which way should I go?
Cat: That depends on where you are going.
Alice: I don’t know.
Cat: Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

Way , Cats , Dependency

“Where should I go?" -Alice. "That depends on where you want to end up." - The Cheshire Cat.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Cats , Dependency

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

People , Cats , Help , Madness

“A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Cats

“There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Variant: There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

Life , Music , Cats

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love

Time Enough for Love (1973)

For women , Women , Men , Dogs

“So you know cats are interesting. They are kind of like girls. If they come and talk to you it's great. But if you try to talk to them it doesn't always go so well.”

Shigeru Miyamoto (1952) Japanese video game designer and producer

Source http://kotaku.com/5564576/live-from-nintendos-e3-briefing

Girl , Cats

“One small cat changes coming home to an empty house to coming home.”

Pam Brown (1948) Australian poet

Home , Cats , Change , Housing

“I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Cats

“Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?”

The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know,” Alice answered.

“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Variant: One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response. ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Cats , Tree

“Only the insane equate pain with success."
"The uninformed must improve their deficit, or die."
_Cheshire Cat”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Other Stories

Pain , Cats , Success

“Time spent with a cat is never wasted.”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

For Mother , Cats , Time

“If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Dogs , Cats , Animals

“If a black cat crosses your path, it signifies that the animal is going somewhere.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Cats , Animals , Funny

“I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?"
Death thought about it.
CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.”

Terry Pratchett book Sourcery

Source: Sourcery

Death , World , Cats

“"What's your name," Coraline asked the cat. "Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?"
"Cats don't have names," it said.
"No?" said Coraline.
"No," said the cat. "Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names."”

Neil Gaiman book Coraline

Coraline (2002)

People , Cats

“Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn't there, and finding it.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

This quote was instead first mentioned in a 1931 book titled “Since Calvary: An Interpretation of Christian History” by the comparative religion specialist Lewis Browne.
Disputed

Cats , Religion

“In ancient times cats were worshiped as gods; they have not forgotten this.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Pratchett is credited as author of this, as quoted in Ghost Cats : Human Encounters with Feline Spirits (2007) by Dusty Rainbolt, p. 7, and in Chicken Soup for the Soul : What I Learned from the Cat (2009) by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Amy Newmark
Quote attributed to unknown author, in Chicken Soup for the Soul Celebrates Cats : And the People Who Love Them (2004) by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Sharon J. Wohlmuth, p. 1
General sources
Variant: In ancient times, cats were worshiped as gods. They have never forgotten this.

God , Cats , Time

“At night all cats are grey.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Cats , Night

“When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Who Is Mark Twain?

Love , Cats

“In the dark, all cats are black.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Cats

“It's like God's. God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Picasso quoted in 'TIME'; quoted in: The Atlantic, Vol. 214 (1964), p. 97.
Picasso commented on his ambiguous style, or use of multiple styles.
1960s

God , Cats

“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 book Marked

Source: Marked

Way , Feeling , Cats , Gauge

“In some lost fold of the past, we wanted to be lions and we're no more than castrated cats”

Roberto Bolaño book The Savage Detectives

Source: The Savage Detectives

Cats , Past

“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Christopher Soames, speech at the Reform Club (28 April 1981), reported in Martin S. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill. Volume Eight: Never Despair: 1945–1965. p. 304
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Variant: I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
Context: [Christopher Soames, Churchill's future son-in-law, remembered] Churchill showing him around Chartwell Farm [around 1946]. When they came to the piggery Churchill scratched one of the pigs and said: I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

Dogs , Cats , Funny

“You know how it is with cats: They don't really have owners, they have staff.”

P. C. Cast book Chosen

Source: Chosen

Cats

“Human beings are drawn to cats because they are all we are not — self-contained, elegant in everything they do, relaxed, assured, glad of company, yet still possessing secret lives.”

Pam Brown (1948) Australian poet

Secret , Cats

“cats choose us; we don't own them”

Kristin Cast (1986) American writer

Cats

“Dogs like everyone. Cats choose who to like.”

Lauren Myracle book Shine

Source: Shine

Dogs , Cats

“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 title?”

Mark Twain book Pudd'nhead Wilson

Source: Pudd'nhead Wilson

Home , Cats , Perfection

“It is good to be a cynic—it is better to be a contented cat — and it is best not to exist at all. Universal suicide is the most logical thing in the world—we reject it only because of our primitive cowardice and childish fear of the dark. If we were sensible we would seek death—the same blissful blank which we enjoyed before we existed.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

"Nietzscheism and Realism" from The Rainbow, Vol. I, No. 1 (October 1921); reprinted in "To Quebec and the Stars", and also in Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 71
Non-Fiction
Source: Collected Essays 5: Philosophy, Autobiography and Miscellany

Death , World , Fear , Cats

“One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Black Cat

The Black Cat (1843)

Home , Soul , Cats , Night

“You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Earliest published version found on Google Books with this phrasing is in the 1993 book The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking by Tracy L. LaQuey and Jeanne C. Ryer, p. 25 http://books.google.com/books?id=sP5SAAAAMAAJ&q=meowing#search_anchor. However, the quote seems to have been circulating on the internet earlier than this, appearing for example in this post from 1987 http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/msg/cc89abb5e065d23f?hl=en and this one from 1985 http://groups.google.com/group/net.sources.games/browse_thread/thread/846af15b5a38c35/3d6d5a639c24bba3. No reference has been found that cites a source in Einstein's original writings, and the quote appears to be a variation of an old joke that dates at least as far back as 1866, as discussed in this entry from the "Quote Investigator" blog http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/02/24/telegraph-cat/#more-3387. A variant was told by Thomas Edison, appearing in The Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison (1948), p. 216 http://books.google.com/books?id=NXtEAAAAIAAJ&q=edinburgh#search_anchor: "When I was a little boy, persistently trying to find out how the telegraph worked and why, the best explanation I ever got was from an old Scotch line repairer who said that if you had a dog like a dachshund long enough to reach from Edinburgh to London, if you pulled his tail in Edinburgh he would bark in London. I could understand that. But it was hard to get at what it was that went through the dog or over the wire." A variant of Edison's comment can be found in the 1910 book Edison, His Life and Inventions, Volume 1 by Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin, p. 53 http://books.google.com/books?id=qN83AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA53#v=onepage&q&f=false.
The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat.
Variant, earliest known published version is How to Think Like Einstein by Scott Thorpe (2000), p. 61 http://books.google.com/books?id=9yrYQxBgIYEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA61#v=onepage&q&f=false. Appeared on the internet before that, as in this archived page from 12 October 1999 http://web.archive.org/web/19991012152820/http://stripe.colorado.edu/%7Ejudy/einstein/advice.html
Misattributed

Angels , Way , Cats , Understanding

“In death too, there is always something of the rich cat that lets the mouse run before devouring it”

Ernst Bloch (1885–1977) German philosopher

Traces (1930), p. 30

Death , Cats

“Every time a boy falls off a tricycle, every time a black cat has gray kittens, every time someone stubs a toe, every time there's a murder or a fire or the Marines land in Nicaragua, the police and the newspapers holler, 'Get Capone!' I'm sick of it. As soon as I possibly can, I'll clear out of here.”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

Cats , Time , Boy

“Cats aren't special advisers. They advise us all the time, whether we want them to or no.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

Veralidaine "Daine" Sarrasri

Cats , Time

“Cats have it all - admiration, an endless sleep, and company only when they want it.”

Rod McKuen (1933–2015) American poet, songwriter, composer, and singer

Cats , Sleep

“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 kind.”

Cleveland Amory book The Cat Who Came for Christmas

Source: The Cat Who Came for Christmas

Cats , Time , Patience

“If a cat sits on a hot stove, that cat won't sit on a hot stove again. That cat won't sit on a cold stove either. That cat just don't like stoves.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Cats

“In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the
cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat
could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

Cats , Dead , Box

“What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?—I wish I knew… Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can…”

Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Cats , Victory

“Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind puppies.”

William Shakespeare Othello

Source: Othello

Cats

“There are no ordinary cats.”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

Cats

“Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

As quoted in The Cat Lover's Book of Fascinating Facts : A Felicitous Look at Felines‎ (1997) by Ed Lucaire

Cats , Nature

“For all the accomplishments of molecular biology, we still can't tell a live cat from a dead cat.”

Lynn Margulis (1938–2011) American evolutionary biologist

Cats , Dead

“A cat understands how to be pleasant in the morning. He doesn't talk.”

Tamora Pierce book Mastiff

Source: Mastiff

Cats , Understanding

“If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat.”

Douglas Adams book The Salmon of Doubt

Douglas Adams. The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time. New York: Random House, 2002, 135–136.
Also quoted by Richard Dawkins in his Eulogy for Douglas Adams (17 September 2001) http://www.edge.org/documents/adams_index.html
Context: If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat. Life is a level of complexity that almost lies outside our vision; it is so far beyond anything we have any means of understanding that we just think of it as a different class of object, a different class of matter; 'life', something that had a mysterious essence about it, was God given, and that's the only explanation we had. The bombshell comes in 1859 when Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species. It takes a long time before we really get to grips with this and begin to understand it, because not only does it seem incredible and thoroughly demeaning to us, but it's yet another shock to our system to discover that not only are we not the centre of the Universe and we're not made by anything, but we started out as some kind of slime and got to where we are via being a monkey. It just doesn't read well.

Cats

“Cats are a mysterious kind of folk.”

Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet

Cats

“Curiosity killed the cat, and satisfaction brought it back.”

Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature

Cats

“Witches were a bit like cats. They didn’t much like one another’s company, but they did like to know where all the other witches were, just in case they needed them.”

Terry Pratchett book A Hat Full of Sky

Source: A Hat Full of Sky

Cats

“While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Cats

“Cats gravitate to kitchens like rocks gravitate to gravity.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

Cats

“I'm a fighter. I believe in the eye-for-an-eye business. I'm no cheek turner. I got no respect for a man who won't hit back. You kill my dog, you better hide your cat.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

Source: The Greatest My Own Story

Dogs , Cats , Business

“I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Attributed to Lincoln in Mark Gold (1998), Animal century . Also attributed to Rowland Hill in Henry Woodcock (1879), Wonders of Grace
Misattributed

Religion , Dogs , Cats

“After all, a woman who doesn't love cats is never going to be make a man happy.”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

Source: The Museum of Innocence

Love , Cats , Happiness

“What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats?”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Source: Thoreau Journal 9

Cats

“If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

People , Cats

“My cat is not insane, she's just a really good actress.”

P. C. Cast book Untamed

Source: Untamed

Cats

“Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

God , Cats

“No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Cats , Fight

“His movements could be called cat-like, except that he did not stop to spray urine up against things.”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

Cats

“I went to collect the few personal belongings which… I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

Travel , Cats , Solitude , Personality

“One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Lie , Cats

“Oh, you can't help that,' said the cat. 'We're all mad here.”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

Cats , Help , Madness

“I've never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a 'fat cat' and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a 'public-spirited philanthropist'.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Money , Cats , Understanding

“A cat is more intelligent than people believe, and can be taught any crime.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

People , Intelligence , Cats

“I gave my cat a bath the other day… they love it. He sat there, he enjoyed it, it was fun for me. The fur would stick to my tongue, but other than that…”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Love , Cats

“I really had no control over my cat. Hell, who actually had control over any cat?”

P. C. Cast (1960) American writer

Cats , Hell

“Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that will cause most inconvenience.”

Pam Brown (1948) Australian poet

Cats , Mathematics

“It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine tonight in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows' weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.”

Dylan Thomas book Under Milk Wood

Source: " Under Milk Wood http://www.undermilkwood.net/prose_umw1.html" (1954)

People , Spring , Cats , Sleep

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Fesgao remarked, his dark eyes unreadable.
Aly rolled her eyes. Why did everyone say that to her? “People always forget the rest of the saying,” she complained. “‘And satisfaction brought it back.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

Source: Trickster's Choice

People , Cats , Forgetting

“You can manicure a cat but can you caticure a man?”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Source: Skywriting by Word of Mouth and Other Writings

Cats

“You don't take your cat with you to go bird shopping. Not because the cat isn't polite, but because he's a cat.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

Cats , Bird

“the only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats…”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Life , Music , Cats

“Now I have a cat. Well, that's not quite accurate. A cat and I have each other.”

Kinky Friedman (1944) Singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician

Cats

“If man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Notebook

Cats

“I don't like the looks of it,' said the King: 'however, it may kis my hand, if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Cats

“A person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was gitting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn't ever going to grow dim or doubtful.”

Mark Twain book Tom Sawyer Abroad

Source: Tom Sawyer Abroad

Home , Cats , Knowledge , Personality

“Maurice watched them argue again. Humans, eh? Think they're lords of creation. Not like us cats. We know we are. Ever see a cat feed a human? Case proven.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

Cats , Thinking

“I hate cats."
Death's face became a little stiffer, if that were possible. The blue glow in his eye sockets flickered red for an instant.
"I SEE," he said. The tone suggested that death was too good for cat haters.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

Death , Hate , Cats

“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 book The Rats in the Walls

Source: The Rats in the Walls

Lie , Secret , Mountain , Cats

“Meow means "woof" in cat.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Books, Brain Droppings (1997)

Cats

“Did you ever think that in a past life Alec was an old woman with ninety cats who was always yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off her lawn? Because I do”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Life , Cats , Thinking , Past

“Cats will amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw.”

Terry Pratchett book Men at Arms

Source: Men at Arms

Cats

“If cats understood technology and had opposable thumbs, they'd rule the world.”

P. C. Cast book Awakened

Source: Awakened

World , Cats

“Of course, maybe I'd end up like one of those crazy old people with, like, sixty cats. And one day, the neighbors would complain about the smell, and it would turn out I'd died and the cats had eaten me.

Still, it might be nice to have a cat.”

Alex Flinn (1966) American children's writer

People , Cats

“Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin,' thought Alice 'but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing i ever saw in my life!”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

Life , Cats

“Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it is the sickening grammar that they use.”

Mark Twain book A Tramp Abroad

A Tramp Abroad (1880)
Context: You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does -- but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use.

People , Cats , Thinking , Fight

“Next comes the realist phase ("After all, from a purely geometrical point of view a cat is only a tube with a door at the top.").”

Terry Pratchett book The Unadulterated Cat

About giving a cat a pill
The Unadulterated Cat (1989)

Cats

“I think people should elect a cat person. If you elect a dog person, you elect someone who wants to be loved. If you elect a cat person, you elect someone who wants to serve.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

Interview with Kevin Newman, Global National April 5th, 2006.
2006

Love , People , Dogs , Cats

“I do differ from you radically in respect to familiar things & scenes; for I always demand close correlation with the landscape & historic stream to which I belong, & would feel completely lost in infinity without a system of reference-points based on known & accustomed objects. I take complete relativity so much for granted, that I cannot conceive of anything as existing in itself in any recognisable form. What gives things an aspect & quasi-significance to us is the fact that we view things consistently from a certain artificial & fortuitous angle. Without the preservation of that angle, coherent consciousness & entity itself becomes inconceivable. Thus my wish for freedom is not so much a wish to put all terrestrial things behind me & plunge forever into abysses beyond light, matter, & energy. That, indeed, would mean annihilation as a personality rather than liberation. My wish is perhaps best defined as a wish for infinite visioning & voyaging power, yet without loss of the familiar background which gives all things significance. I want to know what stretches Outside, & be able to visit all the gulfs & dimensions beyond Space & Time. I want, too, to juggle the calendar at will; bringing things from the immemorial past down into the present, & making long journeys into the forgotten years. But I want the familiar Old Providence of my childhood as a perpetual base for these necromancies & excursions—& in a good part of these necromancies & excursions I want certain transmuted features of Old Providence to form part of the alien voids I visit or conjure up. I am as geographic-minded as a cat—places are everything to me. Long observation has shewn me that no other objective experience can give me even a quarter of the kick I can extract from the sight of a fresh landscape or urban vista whose antiquity & historic linkages are such as to correspond with certain fixed childhood dream-patterns of mine. Of course my twilight cosmos of half-familiar, fleetingly remembered marvels is just as unattainable as your Ultimate Abysses—this being the real secret of its fascination. Nothing really known can continue to be acutely fascinating—the charm of many familiar things being mainly resident in their power to symbolise or suggest unknown extensions & overtones.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Clark Ashton Smith (7 November 1930), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 214
Non-Fiction, Letters

Secret , Dreams , Feeling , Cats

“Whenever you wash dishes, cook, or clean, if you make no sound, this is smartness itself. A person who enters a house and makes a lot of noise is revealing a lack of spirituality; even cats and dogs do not make unnecessary sounds, and man as he naturally is does not make any either.”

Michio Kushi (1926–2014) Japanese educator

Source: Spiritual Journey: Michio Kushi's Guide to Endless Self-Realization and Freedom (1994, with Edward Esko), p. 4

Dogs , Cats , Nature , Housing

“I do not want to go back to God with less knowledge than when I was born. I want my footprints to make an impress on the field of reason. I have no desire to be a cat and walk so lightly that it never creates a disturbance. I want my footprints to be plainly seen by all…”

Andrew Taylor Still (1828–1917) Founder of Osteopathic Medicine

Still. A. T., Journal of Osteopathy, p. 127. https://www.atsu.edu/museum/subscription/pdfs/JournalofOsteopathyVol5No31898August.pdf/.

God , Cats , Knowledge

“Dear Reader: The title of this book is composed of three words from my novel Cat's Cradle. A wampeter is an object around which the lives of many otherwise unrelated people may revolve. The Holy Grail would be a case in point. Foma are harmless untruths, intended to comfort simple souls. An example: "Prosperity is just around the corner." A granfalloon is a proud and meaningless association of human beings. Taken together, the words form as good an umbrella as any for this collection of some of the reviews and essays I've written, a few of the speeches I made.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

"Preface"
Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (1974)

People , Books , Soul , Cats

“It's an interesting fact that fewer than 17 % of Real cats end their lives with the same name they started with. Much family effort goes into selecting one at the start ("She looks like a Winnifred to me"), and the as the years roll by it suddenly finds itself being called Meepo or Ratbag.”

Terry Pratchett book The Unadulterated Cat

The Unadulterated Cat (1989)

Family , Cats , Effort

“I regard [the many worlds interpretation] as self-evidently correct. [T. F.: Yet some don't find it evident to themselves. ] Yeah, well, there are some people who spend an awful lot of time talking about the interpretation of quantum mechanics. My attitude — I would paraphrase Goering—is that when I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my gun.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Heard in person by this contributor when Hawking showed-up in a Caltech physics class taught by Robert Christy in 1980 or '81; when asked about collapse of the state-vector he whispered to his assistant Chris (surname unknown) something at which point Chris stood up and said 'Stephen is paraphrasing Herman Göring by saying "When I hear the words 'Schrödinger's Cat' I reach for my gun."'.
Source: In a conversation with Timothy Ferris (4 April 1983), as quoted in The Whole Shebang (1998) by Timothy Ferris, p. 345 http://books.google.com/books?id=qjYbQ7EBAKwC&lpg=PA345&ots=F6VWymjiPx&dq=%22reach%20for%20my%20revolver%22%20hawking%20-%22oft-made%22&pg=PA345#v=onepage&q=%22reach%20for%20my%20revolver%22%20hawking%20-%22oft-made%22&f=false

World , People , Time , Cats

““But I’m Pharaoh,” Neter-Khet said. “I’m supposed to give orders.”
“That doesn’t mean anything to a cat,” said Jason. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you?
“Nobody tells me,” Neter-Khet said. “I tell them. Besides, they were my cats, weren’t they?”
“In a way they were,” Jason said, “and in a way they weren’t. A cat can belong to you, but you can’t own him. There’s a difference.””

Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007) American children's writer

Source: Time Cat (1963), Chapter 3 “Neter-Khet” (p. 20)

Way , Cats

“I endorse all that you say of the superior intelligence of the felidae. Never have I been able to associate the docile servility and satellitism of the canidae with mental power. Zoölogists seem to consider the cerebration of cats and dogs about 50-50—but my respect always goes to the cool, sure, impersonal, delicately poised feline who minds his business and never slobbers—the aristocratic, epicurean philosopher who knows what he wants and tells interlopers to go to hell. There is no credit in having a dog attached to one—for a dog can be conditioned to become anybody's slave and property. But a cat is nobody's slave. You do not own a cat. If one lives in your home, it is because he regards your way of life favourably, and accepts you as a friend, as one gentleman accepts another. He takes no kicks or insolence from anyone. If you are not worthy to associate with him, he will depart to seek an environment more suited to a gentleman's taste. Therefore he who retains the respect and companionship of a feline has proven himself to be essentially a superior citizen. For a human being, membership in the Kappa Alpha Tau forms a badge of distinction. Many are the eminent names on that member ship list—Mahomet himself, Richelieu, Poe, Baudelaire... one could catalogue them endlessly. Certainly, I ask no greater honour than to be accounted a citizen of Ulthar beyond the River Skai!”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to E. Hoffmann Price (29 July 1936), published in Selected Letters Vol. V, p. 290
Non-Fiction, Letters, to E. Hoffmann Price

Life , Dogs , Way , Home

“Boot-faced cats aren't born but made, often because they've tried to outstare or occasionally rape a speeding car and have been repaired by a vet who just pulled all the bits together and stuck the stitches in where there was room.”

Terry Pratchett book The Unadulterated Cat

The Unadulterated Cat (1989)

Cars , Cats , Speed