Quotes about mouse (122 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“I will show you the way
To Africa comes Santa Claus
and before Paris stands Mickey Mouse.”

Till Lindemann (1963) German industrial metal musician

Ich werde euch die Richtung zeigen
Nach Afrika kommt Santa Claus
und vor Paris steht Micky Maus
"Amerika"
Reise, Reise (2004)

Way

“And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

Life , Grass , Night

“Harry Dresden: Took cover. In the action business, when you don't want to say you ran like a mouse, you call it 'taking cover.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

It's more heroic.
Source: The Dresden Files, Dead Beat (2005), Chapter 34

Business

“Around 1945, daily life might have been hard, but the reputation of Disney was at its highest. The voices of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck had stabilized, Snow White and Bambi were huge hits and had received a number of international prizes. It really was like the brightness of a rising sun. And then Japanese children after the war had no choice but to face the flood of Disney comics that accompanied the brainwashing of “American democracy.””

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

That was their merit as propaganda against the Japanese.
Tezuka Osamu and American Comics http://www.tcj.com/tezuka-osamu-and-american-comics/, (1973), as quoted by Ryan Holmberg, The Comics Journal, Jul 16, 2012.

Life , War , Children , Democracy

“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

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

As quoted in Unexpected News : Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes (1984) by Robert McAfee Brown, p. 19

“The second mouse gets the cheese!”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

“Jace shook his blond head in exasperation.
"You had to make a crazy jail friend, didn't you? You couldn't just count ceiling tiles or tame a pet mouse like normal prisoners do?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“He raised his hand in a peaceful gesture. "You need to relax a bit, dove. Like Mouse over there. You trust me, don't you, Mouse?"
"Nope!"
"Ahhh, I'm hurt. Nobody likes me.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Peace , Hurt

“My darling," she said at last, are you sure you don't mind being a mouse for the rest of your life?"
"I don't mind at all" I said.
It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like as long as somebody loves you.”

Roald Dahl book The Witches

Source: The Witches

Love , Life

“The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”

Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.

Funny , Bird

“My last words? "Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse."”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

I Love You, Madame Librarian (2004)

Life , Way , Animals

“A couple of years ago, we went to Eurodisney. That too was bearable, although it was a bit weird when Mickey Mouse came to ask for an autograph.”

Robert Smith (musician) (1959) English singer, songwriter and musician

Humo Magazine, 2000

“When I was a kid, I never went to Disneyland. My ol' man told me Mickey Mouse died in a cancer experiment.”

Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian

Source: It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs (2004), p. 9

“One way of poisoning love is to mingle it with hate. It is the best way but in some ways the most dangerous. Love and hate are the cat and mouse of our emotions, sometimes the cat chases the mouse, often the mouse chases the cat; but when both cat and mouse are tired of chasing each other there is little left to do. All one can do then is to admit the most bitter truth of all, the most bitter but also the best: that two people in love with each other can not be alone on an island without ceasing to love; that they can not be an island, they need contact with the mainland, they need other people. It is cold comfort for those who believe that love is an island in the sea, and when we have grown tired of islands very little consolation remains. When we have grown tired of loving we are glad that the one we love is not the only person in the world.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 206

Love , Hate , People , Truth

“Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,
And the little gray mouse, she called him Blink,
And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,
But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Many Long Years Ago (1945), The Tale of Custard the Dragon

Dogs

“Help? Of course we can help,' Malcolm said, turning around to face them. 'You need to get a message through? There's always carrier kittens.'
'You mean pigeons,' said Bat. 'Carrier pigeons.'
Malcolm shook his head. 'Carrier kittens. They're so cute, no one can deny them. Fix your mouse problem, too.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Bat Velasquez and Malcolm Fade, pg. 403
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

Problem , Help

“I know so well what becomes of unmarried women who aren't prepared to occupy a position. I've seen such pitiful cases in the South — barely tolerated spinsters living upon the grudging patronage of sister's husband or brother's wife! — stuck away in some little mouse-trap of a room — encouraged by one in-law to visit another — little birdlike women without any nest — eating the crust of humility all their life! Is that the future that we've mapped out for ourselves?”

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie

Amanda, Scene Two
The Glass Menagerie (1944)

Life , Women , Law , Sister

“If e'er thy breast with freedom glow'd,
And spurn'd a tyrant's chain,
Let not thy strong oppressive force
A free-born mouse detain.”

Anna Laetitia Barbauld The Mouse's Petition

The Mouse's Petition (1773)

Freedom , Strong

“Dog hates mouse and worships "cat", mouse despises "cat" and hates dog, "cat" hates no one and loves mouse.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

A Foreword to Krazy (1946)
Context: A humbly poetic, gently clownlike, supremely innocent, and illimitably affectionate creature (slightly resembling a child's drawing of a cat, but gifted with the secret grace and obvious clumsiness of a penguin on terra firma) who is never so happy as when egoist-mouse, thwarting altruist-dog, hits her in the head with a brick. Dog hates mouse and worships "cat", mouse despises "cat" and hates dog, "cat" hates no one and loves mouse.

Love , Hate , Dogs , Cats

“The idea of a band nowadays is 5 pretty boys, one with a tattoo, one with a shaved head, and on and on. What the fuck is that? I mean, I like Britney Spears, I think she's pretty, but I'm not from the Mickey Mouse Club-I'm from the Godzilla Club!”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

Guitar World Issue 37, 2000.

Idea , Boy , Thinking , Tattoo

“I am a huge bodybuilder from Africa. I have met mickey mouse once in Disneyland which had given me the courage to push along as now my max for bench has increased to 50 and squat max is also 50. This just goes to show how hard you can push yourself.”

#1 Broncos Fan

Courage

“The early bird may get the worm, but it's the second mouse who gets the cheese.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Bird , Funny

“Delly lost her temper at Peeta over how he treated you. She got very squeaky. It was like someone stabbing a mouse with a fork repeatedly.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

“The mighty lion toys with the mouse that crosses his path—any other reaction would mar his fearsome reputation.”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

“Pick-a-lock, Pick-a-lock, you'll regret the day,
When you took a mouse thief and locked him away,
Silly cat, look at that, it's two for one,
A thief and a warrior, by dawn will be gone.”

Brian Jacques book Mossflower

Source: Mossflower

Cats

“If one day, a bhailach… ye should meet a verra large mouse named Michael-ye'll tell him your grandsire sends his regards.”

Diana Gabaldon book A Breath of Snow and Ashes

Source: A Breath of Snow and Ashes

“Little mouse," a voice said through the keyhole. "Don't you know the more you wriggle, the greater the cat's delight?”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Cats

“Neither the mouse nor the boy was the least bit surprised that each could understand the other. Two creatures who shared a love for motorcycles naturally spoke the same language.”

Beverly Cleary book The Mouse and the Motorcycle

Source: The Mouse and the Motorcycle

Love , Boy , Understanding , Nature

“There ain't a body, be it mouse or man, that ain't made better by a little soup.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

Source: The Tale of Despereaux

“Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.”

Kate DiCamillo (1964) American children's writer

Source: Despereaux = Tale of Despereaux

Fate

“Mouse sandwiches and open graves?" Meredith arched an elegant eyebrow. "I think you're getting Stephen King mixed up with Lewis Carroll.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Dark Reunion

Thinking

“You’ve the presence of a mouse fart in a high wind. Stand aside, and try not to catch fire if I shed sparks of genius.”

Scott Lynch book The Republic of Thieves

Source: The Republic of Thieves

“You dare to stand with my enemy? (Stryker)
Against you, Father, I’d stand with Mickey Mouse. (Urian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

“Bonapartist democrat. Grey shades of a quiet mouse colour.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Les Misérables

“If you watch the wolf too hard, a mouse will bite you on the ankle”

Robert Jordan book The Eye of the World

Source: The Eye of the World

Wolf

“A mouse slid out from under his hat and scrambled down his sleeve, across his lap, and down to the floor.
Nothing,' said Fenworth, 'should distract from a wizard's dignity.”

Donita K. Paul (1950) American writer

Source: DragonQuest

“When one deals with the Murthe, the unthinkable becomes the ordinary, and Zanzel's repute carries no more weight than last year's mouse-dropping - if that much.”

Jack Vance (1916–2013) American mystery and speculative fiction writer

"The Murthe", chapter 2
Quotations and text from the Dying Earth novels, Rhialto the Marvellous (1984)

“A little mouse with clogs on,
Well I declare”

Myles Rudge (1926–2007) English songwriter and scriptwriter

Song A Windmill in Old Amsterdam

“I'd like to say that people people can change anything they want to; and that means everything in the world. Show me any country and there'll be people in it. And it's the people that make the country. People have got to stop pretending they're not on the world. People are running about following their little tracks. I am one of them. But we've all gotta stop just stop following our own little mouse trail. People can do anything; this is something that I'm beginning to learn. People are out there doing bad things to each other; it's because they've been dehumanized. It's time to take that humanity back into the centre of the ring and follow that for a time. Greed… it ain't going anywhere! They should have that on a big billboard across Times Square. Think on that. Without people you're nothing.”

Joe Strummer (1952–2002) British musician, singer, actor and songwriter

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (2007).

People , World , Thinking , Learning

“331. A Mouse in Time may shear a Cable asunder.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1735) : By diligence and patience, the mouse bit in two the cable.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Time

“I said, `Now, wait a minute, so you're telling me you want this fish who lives in a fish tank in a dentist's office to be a fictitious character from an NBC sitcom?' I mean, it just doesn't make any sense to me. It's like, why would you want Mickey Mouse to be the lead in the `House of the Seven Gables' or something.”

Megan Mullally (1958) American actress

On being fired from "Finding Nemo" for refusing to do her Karen voice
Attributed

Sense , Fish , Waiting , Housing

“Now, consciousness. That’s a fun thing, isn’t it? Product of an arms race between predators and prey. If you watch a cat creeping up on a mouse, you’ll be able to impute to the cat intentions that are most easily explained by the cat having a theory of mind concerning the mouse—an internal simulation of the mouse’s likely behavior when it notices the predator. Which way to run, for example. And the cat will use its theory of mind to optimize its attack strategy. Meanwhile, prey species that are complex enough to have a theory of mind are at a defensive advantage if they can anticipate a predator’s actions. Eventually this very mammalian arms race gave us a species of social ape that used its theory of mind to facilitate signaling—so the tribe could work collectively—and then reflexively, to simulate the individual’s own inner states. Put the two things together, signaling and introspective simulation, and you’ve got human-level consciousness, with language thrown in as a bonus—signaling that transmits information about internal states, not just crude signals such as ‘predator here’ or ‘food there.”

Charles Stross book Accelerando

Source: Accelerando (2005), Chapter 9 (“Survivor”), p. 397

Food , Way , Behavior , Cats

“I was born,” the Mouse said. “I must die. I am suffering. Help me. There, I just wrote your book for you.”

Samuel R. Delany book Nova

Source: Nova (1968), Chapter 5 (p. 156)

Books , Suffering , Help

“I've never been a practicing doctor. Except when I was called to the army and ordered to heal soldiers. Neither before nor then did I deal with practical medicine. The more we enter the future, the more laboratory medicine becomes something different than practical medicine. It requires specialists of a different format than those who serve at the bedside. It also requires completely different skills. I research allergy, but my experimental animal is a mouse, not a human.”

Włodzimierz Ptak (1928–2019) immunologist

Borejza, Tomasz (January 2018): Trochę bakterii nie zaszkodzi https://www.tygodnikprzeglad.pl/troche-bakterii-zaszkodzi/. Przegląd (4/2018): pp. 54–55.

Future , Animals

“The old proverb was now made good, "the mountain had brought forth a mouse."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Life of Agesilaus II
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Mountain

“I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing — that it all started with a mouse.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

What Is Disneyland television program (27 October 1954)
Variants:
I only hope that we don't lose sight of one thing — that it all started with a mouse.
As quoted in The Story of Disney (2004) by Adele D. Richardson, p. 41
Variant: I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing — that it was all started by a mouse.

Hope

“The real secret is why love starts out with claws like a cat and then fades with time like a half-eaten mouse.”

Herta Müller book The Appointment

Michael Hulse and Philip Boehm translation, Picador 2002, p. 81
The Appointment (1997)

Love , Secret , Cats , Time

“If you're a twofisted, spineless progressive (a mighty fashionable stance nowadays) Offissa Pupp, who forcefully asserts the will of socalled society, becomes a cosmic angel; while Ignatz Mouse, who forcefully defies society's socalled will by asserting his authentic own, becomes a demon of anarchy and a fiend of chaos. But if—whisper it—you're a 100% hidebound reactionary, the foot's in the other shoe. Ignatz Mouse then stands forth as a hero, pluckily struggling to keep the flag of free will flying; while Offissa Pupp assumes the monstrous mien of a Goliath, satanically bullying a tiny but indomitable David. Well, let's flip the coin—so: and lo! Offissa Pupp comes up. That makes Ignatz Mouse "tails."”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Now we have a hero whose heart has gone to his head and a villain whose head has gone to his heart.
A Foreword to Krazy (1946)

Angels , Shoe , Fashion , Heart

“A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.”

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) English poet and fiction writer

Silver.

Fish , Water

“The sphinx atropos squeakes when hurt, nearly as loud as a mouse, which, when uttered in the most plaintive tone, naturally shocks the human heart, and makes it shudder at the thought of destroying inoffensive animals merely for the sake of curiosity. I cannot help reflecting on this tyranny, this wanton cruelty, exercised by thoughtless man, on many animals but especially in insects: 'tis certain, that every animal possessing life, has feeling; and, therefore, is as capable of suffering pain, as of enjoying pleasure; and, as Shakespeare humanely expresses “The poor beetle crushed beneath the foot, feels the pangs of death as great as when a monarch falls.””

James Barbut English painter and naturalist

Gentle reader, pardon this digression, my feelings commanded my pen.
The Genera Insectorum of Linnæus, Exemplified by Various Specimens English Insects drawn by Nature (1781)

Life , Death , Pain , Pleasure

“To the mouse, snow means freedom from want and fear. … To a rough-legged hawk, a thaw means freedom from want and fear.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“January: January Thaw”, p. 4.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "January Thaw", "February: Good Oak" & "March: The Geese Return"

Fear , Freedom

“"The water in music the oar forsakes." The air in music the wing forsakes. All things move in music and write it. The mouse, lizard, and grasshopper sing together on the Turlock sands, sing with the morning stars.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, from Yosemite Valley (September 1874); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/life_and_letters/default.aspx (1924), chapter 11: On Widening Currents 
(Presumably paraphrasing from the poem Woodnotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Come learn with me the fatal song / Which knits the world in music strong / … / and the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake / The wood is wiser far than thou".)
(Turlock: Town where Muir changed from railroad to foot travel in this particular journey from Oakland, California, to Yosemite Valley.)
1870s

Music , Star , Water , Singing

“The normal process of life contains moments as bad as any of those which insane melancholy is filled with, moments in which radical evil gets its innings and takes its solid turn. The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony. If you protest, my friend, wait till you arrive there yourself! … Here on our very hearths and in our gardens the infernal cat plays with the panting mouse, or holds the hot bird fluttering in her jaws. Crocodiles and rattlesnakes and pythons are at this moment vessels of life as real as we are; their loathsome existence fills every minute of every day that drags its length along; and whenever they or other wild beasts clutch their living prey, the deadly horror which an agitated melancholiac feels is the literally right reaction on the situation.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lectures VI and VII, "The Sick Soul"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

Life , Feeling , Cats , Bird

“Old Rover in his moss-greened house
Mumbles a bone, and barks at a mouse.”

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) English poet and fiction writer

Summer Evening.

Housing

“Life cannot be reconciled with the idea that back of the universe is a Supreme Being, all merciful and kind, and that he takes any account of the human beings and other forms of life that exist upon the earth. Whichever way man may look upon the earth, he is oppressed with the suffering incident to life. It would almost seem as though the earth had been created with malignity and hatred. If we look at what we are pleased to call the lower animals, we behold a universal carnage. We speak of the seemingly peaceful woods, but we need only look beneath the surface to be horrified by the misery of that underworld. Hidden in the grass and watching for its prey is the crawling snake which swiftly darts upon the toad or mouse and gradually swallows it alive; the hapless animal is crushed by the jaws and covered with slime, to be slowly digested in furnishing a meal. The snake knows nothing about sin or pain inflicted upon another; he automatically grabs insects and mice and frogs to preserve his life. The spider carefully weaves his web to catch the unwary fly, winds him into the fatal net until paralyzed and helpless, then drinks his blood and leaves him an empty shell. The hawk swoops down and snatches a chicken and carries it to its nest to feed its young. The wolf pounces on the lamb and tears it to shreds. The cat watches at the hole of the mouse until the mouse cautiously comes out, then with seeming fiendish glee he plays with it until tired of the game, then crushes it to death in his jaws. The beasts of the jungle roam by day and night to find their prey; the lion is endowed with strength of limb and fang to destroy and devour almost any animal that it can surprise or overtake. There is no place in the woods or air or sea where all life is not a carnage of death in terror and agony. Each animal is a hunter, and in turn is hunted, by day and night. No landscape is beautiful or day so balmy but the cry of suffering and sacrifice rends the air. When night settles down over the earth the slaughter is not abated. Some creatures are best at night, and the outcry of the dying and terrified is always on the wind. Almost all animals meet death by violence and through the most agonizing pain. With the whole animal creation there is nothing like a peaceful death. Nowhere in nature is there the slightest evidence of kindness, of consideration, or a feeling for the suffering and the weak, except in the narrow circle of brief family life.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Source: The Story of My Life (1932), p. 383

Life , Death , Pain , Family

“Roger: I have 800 Mickey mice. I just love Mickey Mouse, I have 800 of them, it’s awesome”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

Love

“Enter these enchanted woods,
You who dare.
Nothing harms beneath the leaves
More than waves a swimmer cleaves.
Toss your heart up with the lark,
Foot at peace with mouse and worm,
Fair you fare.
Only at a dread of dark
Quaver, and they quit their form:
Thousand eyeballs under hoods
Have you by the hair.
Enter these enchanted woods,
You who dare.”

George Meredith (1828–1909) British novelist and poet of the Victorian era

The Woods of Westermain http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-woods-of-westermain/, st. 1 (1883).

Peace , Heart

“Rats and mice are not generally regarded as pets, but as pests; they have few defenders. Yet the pain a rat or a mouse feels is every bit as real as that of any pet. In laboratories, they suffer, as anybody who has heard them moan, cry, whimper and even scream knows. The experimenters dissimulate about this by insisting that they are merely vocalising. Descartes lives on.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson book When Elephants Weep

Conclusion, p. 217
When Elephants Weep (1994)

Pain , Feeling , Suffering , Cry

“4678. The Mountains have brought forth a Mouse.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Mountain

“I always loved the grand dichotomies of life. Dogs and cats. Cats and mice. Like Tom and Jerry. But as someone who grew up in Central Europe I never understood how a mouse can live inside a wall. Walls are made of bricks! They are not hollow. Way later I came to understand, when I learned that US-American houses are just made of wood, and their walls are really hollow.”

Johannes Grenzfurthner (1975) Austrian artist, writer, curator, and theatre and film director

from documentary Traceroute

Love , Life , Dogs , Way

“The nature of the personal computer is simply not fully understood by companies like Apple (or anyone else for that matter). Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and need. It, unfortunately, leaves the “why” out of the equation — as in “why would I want this?” The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a “mouse”. There is no evidence that people want to use these things.”

John C. Dvorak (1952) US journalist and radio broadcaster

In a review of the Macintosh in The San Francisco Examiner (19 February 1984)
1980s & 1990s

People , Nature , Thinking , Personality

“I hate mice. The mouse involves you in arm motions that slow you down. I didn't want it on the Macintosh, but Jobs insisted. In those days, what he said went, good idea or not.”

Jef Raskin (1943–2005) American computer scientist

Programmers At Work (1986)

Hate , Idea

“Sometimes the haunting hunger drove the little dog out of his woodlot hiding places by day. But only when hunger became bigger than fear. Only on days when he had not been able to find a dead rabbit or crow, or hadn't been able to catch a quick, scurrying field mouse. On such days he would emerge from his shadowy woodlots. By secret avenues of hedgerow and fencerow he would whip himself across the furtive fields to still another woodlot. In the hope of finding something dead there, or of catching a mouse there. In that hope.”

Meindert DeJong book Hurry Home

Hurry Home, Candy (1953)

Hunger , Secret , Fear , Dogs

“The trouble with most Englishwomen is that they will dress as if they had been a mouse in a previous incarnation… they do not want to attract attention.”

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet

As quoted in Edith Sitwell: Fire of the Mind : an Anthology (1976) by Elizabeth Salter, p. 176

“Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Many Long Years Ago (1945), The Tale of Custard the Dragon

Dogs , Housing

“Apple's two most memorable accomplishments are the GUI, or graphical user interface, and the mouse, both of which it literally stole from Xerox PARC.”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

Technology Trends: Looking Back at 2015 http://itbusinessedge.com/blogs/unfiltered-opinion/technology-trends-looking-back-at-2015.html in IT Business Edge (29 December 2015)

Guy

“The total turtle count - two hundred and thirty species - doesn't seem like an irresistible horde compared to the several thousand mammals in today's global ecosystem. However, turtles have scored quite an impressive ecological triumph in one very important role, that of freshwater predator-omnivore… All through the Temperate Zone, otters delight the naturalist and the lay public. But how many other freshwater, semi-aquatic mammal predators can you name? Mink, of course. Relatives of otters on one hand, land weasels on the other, mink do hunt in streams. How many others? If you caught the excellent BBC series "Life on Earth", you saw footage of the swimming shrew, the Desman of the Pyrenees, a molelike furball that dives for aquatic worms and other freshwater small fry. Our own New England star-nosed mole goes hunting in water, using its starburst-shaped snout tip to feel out wriggling prey. Andean streams flowing through Preu are host to the fish-spearing mouse, Ichthyomys, that impales prey on its projecting front teeth. But if we go to a tropical lake or sluggish river, is it full of otters, mink, and paddling shrews? No, it is full of turtles.”

Robert T. Bakker book The Dinosaur Heresies

The Dinosaur Heresies: A Revolutionary View of Dinosaurs (1986), Longman Scientific & Technical, p. 57
The Dinosaur Heresies (1986)

Life , Feeling , Star , Fish

“Forget the 18th century, the 19th century, even at the birth of the 20th century. Here's my favorite example, here: 1928, my hero, Walt Disney, created this extraordinary work, the birth of Mickey Mouse in the form of Steamboat Willie. But what you probably don't recognize about Steamboat Willie and his emergence into Mickey Mouse is that in 1928, Walt Disney, to use the language of the Disney Corporation today, "stole" Willie from Buster Keaton's "Steamboat Bill."
It was a parody, a take-off; it was built upon Steamboat Bill. Steamboat Bill was produced in 1928 — no 14 years — just take it, rip, mix, and burn, as he did to produce the Disney empire.”

Lawrence Lessig (1961) American academic, political activist.

OSCON 2002

Birth , Forgetting

“The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole
Can never be a mouse of any soul.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

"The Wife of Bath her Prologue, from Chaucer" (c.1704, published 1713), lines 298-299. Compare: "I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke, That hath but on hole for to sterten to", Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, "The Wif of Bathes Prologue", line 6154; "The mouse that hath but one hole is quickly taken", George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum.

Soul

“What's evil for the hawk is the mouse because, you know, the mouse is quick and gets away but I did this one realization every scientist goes through at one point… if you gave the hawk power, the power of God, the first thing the hawk might do is to slow down the mouse. But then the hawk would lose it's speed. And then if you slow the mouse all the way down, so it can just barely move, the hawk would lose its flight. So that in a weird way the tension between those two say natural enemies is what gives birth to their beauty. So I definitely feel that the tension we have right now within the human community in particular — that those are ultimately going to be resolved with a deeper harmony and a deeper appreciation for one another.”

Brian Swimme (1950) American cosmologist

Meaningoflife.tv interview, 2013

God , Beauty , Way , Feeling

“Visson has said, "Today's profits are yesterday's good will ripened," and though friendship is no basis for Business yet Business is an excellent basis for lasting friendship. To cement this friendship the Businessman recalls the fact that the memory of quality remains long after the price is forgotten, and keeps Buskin's dictum in mind that there is nothing in this world that cannot be made a little worse and sold a little cheaper. While it is equally true that men will make a beaten path to your door to acquire a better quality article even if it be a mouse trap. Nevertheless, a man is known by the Company he floats, or the Secretaries he employs, though the latter fluctuate more than the market, especially if of the gentler sex!”

Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman

The Pageant of Life (1964), Businessmen

Men , Friendship , World , Sex

“Man was born to die. What did it mean? Hanging around and waiting. Waiting for the ‘A train.’ Waiting for a pair of big breasts on some August night in a Vegas hotel room. Waiting for the mouse to sing. Waiting for the snake to grow wings. Hanging around.”

Charles Bukowski book Pulp

Pulp (1994)

Singing , Waiting , Training , Night

“"Curse those two time-ghosts!" he almost shrieked. "They made me quite sure you were the Time Lady! But you're not, are you? I could tell you were a real Twenty Century person with every word you said. Mickey Mouse!" he yelled.”

Diana Wynne Jones book A Tale of Time City

Source: A Tale of Time City (1987), p. 87.

Time , Personality

“My mother, whom I loved very much, had trouble with me. I had very good school certificates. But I tormented her with horribly stinky collections. It was not enough for me at home to have a dog, a cat, a canary, a fish, and even a white mouse, which loved to walk around the apartment, although it lived in a cage. I added the protozoa to this menagerie. Traditional definitions regarded these small organisms – such as, for example, amoebae, flagellates, sponges, algae – as single-celled. What in these asexually reproducing animals or plants could intrigue the little boy so much that he permanently endured this abomination (as the mother would say) home?! After all, neither the request nor the threat of this exceptionally tolerant woman, who carried out her home diligently on a daily basis, did not help. A trip to the ponds, or actually to the stagnant at Bonarka – where today is Mateczny Roundabout – were exciting for the little boy. And even more he enjoyed moments when he could watch for hours what was happening in aquariums, jars or cages.”

Włodzimierz Ptak (1928–2019) immunologist

Bętkowska, Teresa (August–September 2010). "Mistrz niszowej dyscypliny" http://www2.almamater.uj.edu.pl/126/17.pdf (PDF). Alma Mater (in Polish). Kraków: Jagiellonian University (126–127): pp. 41–46.

Love , School , Dogs , Home

“Reader, you may ask this question; in fact, you must ask this question: Is it ridiculous for a very small, sickly, big-eared mouse to fall in love with a beautiful human princess named Pea?
The answer is… yes. Of course, it's ridiculous.
Love is ridiculous.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

The Tale of Despereaux (2004)

Love , Beauty , Question , Princess

“I have never had an experience (like 'Star Wars'), and that includes 'Jurassic Park,' of what it feels like to be a character to young children that feels otherworldly or iconic or whatever that is. So now, I've had this amazing experience of little kids seeing me and instead of wanting to talk about the movie, they kind of back away, a little scared. It's like when you go to Disneyland and see Mickey Mouse and you're little. It's a weird thing that 'Star Wars' holds something a bit untouchable or something like that.”

Laura Dern (1967) American actress, director, producer

As quoted in "Laura Dern says kids fear her since appearing in ‘Star Wars’" by James Desborough, New York Daily News (22 January 2018) http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/confidential/laura-dern-kids-fear-appearing-star-wars-article-1.3772851

War , Children , Feeling , Star

“Flies can eat toads! (Although astonishment may be lessened in noting that the tiny toads are much smaller than enormous fly larvae.) Unusually large insects and maximally small vertebrates have also been featured in the few other recorded cases of such reversals - frogs, small birds, even a mouse, consumed by praying mantids, for example.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"Reversing Established Orders", p. 396
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

Bird , Flying

“I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. […] And her dad said, "What you doing?" And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, "Looking for the mouse."
Here's something four-year-olds know: A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken. Here's something four-year-olds know: Media that's targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for. Those are things that make me believe that this is a one-way change. […]
We're going to look at every place that a reader or a listener or a viewer or a user has been locked out, has been served up passive or a fixed or a canned experience, and ask ourselves, "If we carve out a little bit of the cognitive surplus and deploy it here, could we make a good thing happen?"”

Clay Shirky (1964) American technology writer

And I'm betting the answer is yes.
Gin, Television, and Social Surplus (2008)

Way , Change , Daughters

“… We talked while the full moon mounted in the sky, words filling up the narrow space between us, as much a buffer as a link. Hours passed and then suddenly at my foot there was a wriggle of the soil. A kangaroo mouse emerged, a creature that I have never otherwise seen except fleeing at a distance. I put my hand on the man’s shoulder to call his attention to this surprise, and we fell silent and watched the strangely fearless mouse do its work for a long time, then resumed the conversation more slowly and more softly as the creature continued to refine its tunnel entrance and the mound of gravelly earth at its mouth, indifferent to our presence. Bats swooped down and snatched invisible meals from the air, and coyotes began to howl, more of them, closer and more persistently than I’ve ever heard before or since, a whole orchestra of drawn-out cries into the dawn.”

Rebecca Solnit (1961) Author and essayist from United States

A Field Guide to Getting Lost (2005)

Time , Indifference

“Girls bored me — they still do. I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I've ever known.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

As quoted in You Must Remember This (1975) by Walter Wagner

Love , Girl

“There is no human law or law of God or national law that states that any healthy being has to permit the snake to eat the mouse - but on the other hand, it is perfectly justified to defend the mouse.”

Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946) Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany executed for war crimes

To Leon Goldensohn, 6/6/46, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - Page 151 - History - 2004

God , Law

“A mouse lived in a windmill in Old Amsterdam”

Myles Rudge (1926–2007) English songwriter and scriptwriter

Song A Windmill in Old Amsterdam

“A mountain was in labour, sending forth dreadful groans, and there was in the region the highest expectation. After all, it brought forth a mouse.”

Phaedrus book Fables

Book IV, fable 23, line 1.
Fables

Mountain

“Oh, the twenties and the thirties were not otherwise designed
Than other times when blind men into ditches led the blind,
When the rich mouse ate the cheese and the poor mouse got the rind,
And man, the self-destroyer, was not lucid in his mind.”

William Plomer (1903–1973) South African-British writer

"Father and Son: 1939", line 73.
The Dorking Thigh, and Other Satires

Men , Time

“Mr. Astaire is the nearest approach we are ever likely to have to a human Mickey Mouse; he might have been drawn by Mr. Walt Disney, with his quick physical wit, his incredible agility. He belongs to a fantasy world almost as free as Mickey's from the law of Gravity.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Graham Greene reviewing Follow the Fleet in The Spectator 1936 and quoted in Thomas, Bob. Astaire, the Man, The Dancer. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1985. ISBN 0297784021 , p. 81.

World , Law

“When friends speak overmuch of times gone by, often it's because they sense their present time is turning them from friends to strangers. Long before the moment came to say goodbye, I think, we said goodbye in other words and ways and silences. Then when the moment came for it at last, we didn't say it as should be said by friends. So now at last, dear Mouse, with many, many years between: goodbye.”

Frederick Buechner book Godric

Godric (1980)

Way , Thinking , Sense , Silence

“Such is the prestige of the Nobel award and of this place where I stand that I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession and in the great and good men who have practiced it through the ages.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1962)

Men , Age

“So knives out
Catch the mouse
Squash his head
Put him in the pot”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

Knives Out
Lyrics, Amnesiac (2001)

“Bernie wants us to live under the heavenly socialist–communist system like China. We never hear the left criticize that Mao Tse-Tung killed over 80 million people—the Chinese government admits—biggest mass murder in history. That's why there's so many liberal trendy places in Austin, in Denver, in New York, in LA, and San Francisco named after Mao. And people go and love play on their iPhones and the free market and their Chinese slave goods, and they drink beer and expensive wine and giggle about how fun it is to wear red stars. You couldn't put more bad luck on you, you couldn't trash your mojo better. Wearing swastika armbands, you stupid snot-nosed crud! That live off the backs of everybody that fought Nazism and Communism. You need to have your jaws broken! Don't you worry, reality is gonna crash in on you, trash! Who lowered our defenses and brought the Republic down; oh, we're already gone! And you celebrate it like you've joined the globalists mounting America's head on the wall, your great victory! A mass rape of women across Europe. The national draft coming in for women! The families falling apart! Women degraded into nothing but sexual objects! ALL in the name of Gloria Steinem and the Central Intelligence Agency program! And a Bernie Sanders with his fake Einstein hair, and his 'I'm a man of the people!' We go out and talk to Bernie Sanders' supporters, they can hardly talk—they're like him—'Free! Free! I want free stuff!' As if the New World Order is gonna give you anything free! Oh, it's free like a piece of cheese. And a little mouse comes out and it smells it and goes to bite it and, WA BAM! Breaks your neck. But your stupider than the little mouse. You can see all the countries and all the people caught in the mouse traps, caught in the big bear traps. You know what you do? You go into a trendy shop. On some capitalist strip. And you go in and you snuggle in with that credit card that daddy put money in for the trust fund. And you put on that little fur-rimmed coat and you're all sexy with your hammer and sickle on, and your Che Guevara and, you know, shirt from Rage Against the Machine, and the whole capitalist record company system selling it to you, and you go out on the street and you walk into McDonald's and you have yourself a double latte, oh yeah. Pathetic! Scum! Oh, how you'll burn in the camps, later. Wishing you had done something; I mean, you are the ultimate chumps, the ultimate buffoons, the ultimate schmucks!… But the public had so much freedom! They were so wealthy, even our poorest, they had no idea that what they were replacing it with was abject slavery.”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

"Sanders Supporters are Pathetic Scum" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooNxJnf_UAI, February 2016

Love , Women , Money , Bad luck

“I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke,
That hath but on hole for to sterten to.”

Geoffrey Chaucer book The Canterbury Tales

The Wife of Bath's Tale, l. 6154
The Canterbury Tales

“I suppose he had the good luck to be executed, no? I had an hour's chat with him in Buenos Aires. He struck me as a kind of play actor, no? Living up to a certain role. I mean, being a professional Andalusian… But in the case of Lorca, it was very strange because I lived in Andalusia and the Andalusians aren't a bit like that. His were stage Andalusians. Maybe he thought that in Buenos Aires he had to live up to that character, but in Andalusia, people are not like that. In fact, if you are in Andalusia, if you are talking to a man of letters and you speak to him about bullfights, he'll say, 'Oh well, that sort of this pleases people, I suppose, but really the torero works in no danger whatsoever. Because they are bored by these things, because every writer is bored by the local color in his own country. Well, when I met Lorca, he was being a professional Andalusian… Besides, Lorca wanted to astonish us. He said to me that he was very troubled about a very important figure in the contemporary world. A character in whom he could see all the tragedy of American life. And then he went on in this way until I asked him who was this character and it turned out this character was Mickey Mouse. I suppose he was trying to be clever. And I thought, 'That's the kind of thing you say when you are very, very young and you want to astonish somebody.' But after all, he was a grown man, he had no need, he could have talked in a different way. But when he started in about Mickey Mouse being a symbol of America, there was a friend of mine there and he looked at me and I looked at him and we both walked away because we were too old for that kind of game, no? Even at that time.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Richard Burgin, Conversation with Jorge Luis Borges, pages 92-93.
Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges (1968)

Life , People , World , Color

“It's the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do. They even had a Parliament. And every four years they had an election. Used to walk to the polls and cast their ballots. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. And got a ride for the next four years afterwards too. Just like you and me. And every time on election day all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, fat, black cats. Now if you think it strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats, you just look at the history of Canada for last 90 years and maybe you'll see that they weren't any stupider than we are. Now I'm not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows. They conducted their government with dignity. They passed good laws--that is, laws that were good for cats. But the laws that were good for cats weren't very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouseholes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds--so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much physical effort. All the laws were good laws. For cats. But, oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn't put up with it any more, they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse to the polls. They voted the black cats out. They put in the white cats. Now the white cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said: "All that Mouseland needs is more vision." They said:"The trouble with Mouseland is those round mouseholes we got. If you put us in we'll establish square mouseholes." And they did. And the square mouseholes were twice as big as the round mouseholes, and now the cat could get both his paws in. And life was tougher than ever. And when they couldn't take that anymore, they voted the white cats out and put the black ones in again. Then they went back to the white cats. Then to the black cats. They even tried half black cats and half white cats. And they called that coalition. They even got one government made up of cats with spots on them: they were cats that tried to make a noise like a mouse but ate like a cat. You see, my friends, the trouble wasn't with the colour of the cat. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats, they naturally looked after cats instead of mice. Presently there came along one little mouse who had an idea. My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea. And he said to the other mice, "Look fellows, why do we keep on electing a government made up of cats? Why don't we elect a government made up of mice?" "Oh," they said, "he's a Bolshevik. Lock him up!"”

Tommy Douglas (1904–1986) Scottish-born Canadian politician

So they put him in jail. But I want to remind you: that you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can't lock up an idea!
http://www.cbc.ca/player/Digital+Archives/Politics/Parties+and+Leaders/Tommy+Douglas/ID/1409090169/?sort=MostPopular

Life , Stupidity , Law , Travel