"It was not I who was teaching my cat to gather rosebuds, but she who was teaching me." ~ Irving Townsend

"I saw the most beautiful cat today. It was sitting by the side of the road, its two front feet neatly and graciously together. Then it gravely swished around its tail to completely encircle itself. It was so fit and beautifully neat, that gesture, and so self-satisfied, so complacent." ~ Ann Morrow Lindbergher

"If there was any petting to be done...he chose to do it. Often he would sit looking at me, and then, moved by a delicate affection, come and pull at my coat and sleeve until he could touch my face with his nose, and then go away contented." ~ Charles Dudley Warner

"People who love cats have some of the biggest hearts around." ~ Susan Easterly

"The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. Of course he wants care and shelter. You don't buy love for nothing. Like all pure creatures, cats are practical." ~ William S. Burroughs

"Is it yet another survival of jungle instinct, this hiding away from prying eyes at important times? Or merely a gesture of independence, a challenge to man and his stupid ways?" ~ Michael Joseph

"When your cat rubs the side of its face along your leg, it's affectionately marking you with its scent, identifying you as its private property, saying, in effect, 'You belong to me'." ~ Susan McDonough, D.M.V.

"Cats do care. For example, they know instinctively what time we have to be at work in the morning; and they wake us up twenty minutes before the alarm goes off." ~ Michael Nelson

"Although all cat games have their rules and rituals, these vary with the individual player. The cat, of course, never breaks a rule. If it does not follow precedent, that simply means it has created a new rule and it is up to you to learn it quickly if you want the game to continue." ~ Sidney Denham

"A cat is never vulgar." ~ Carl Van Vechten

"You cannot look at a sleeping cat and feel tense." ~ Jane Pauley

"My cat does not talk as respectfully to me as I do to her." ~ Colette

"I rarely meddled in the cat's personal affairs and she rarely meddled in mine. Neither of us was foolish enough to attribute human emotions to our pets." ~ Kinky Friedman

"Cats are dangerous companions for writers because cat watching is a near-perfect method of writing avoidance." ~ Dan Greenburg

"It is remarkable, in cats, that the outer life they reveal to their masters is one of perpetual boredom." ~ Robley Wilson, Jr.

"Cats are successful underachievers. They only need to purr in order to get free food and TLC. What other creature can lay around the house doing nothing beyond purring, and still get free food and TLC?" ~ Jim Aites

"Could the purr be anything but contemplative?" ~ Irving Townsend

"Cat people are different to the extent that they generally are not conformists. How could they be with a cat running their lives?" ~ Louis J. Camuti, D.V.M.

"Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want." ~ Joseph Wood Krutch

"Sleeping together is a euphemism for people, but tantamount to marriage with cats." ~ Marge Percy

"Any conditioned cat-hater can be won over by any cat who chooses to make the effort." ~ Paul Corey

"If it's not tied down, it's a cat toy." ~ Unknown

"You can tell your cat anything and he'll still love you. If you lose your job or your best friend, your cat will think no less of you." ~ Helen Powers

"I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul." ~ Jean Cocteau

"Cats are much like they were when they were first domesticated. They are very independent because they had to be to survive." ~ Dr. Raymond Hampton

"Cats are connoisseurs of comfort." ~ James Herriot

"To err is human, to purr is feline." ~ Robert Byrne

"A cat can be trusted to purr when she is pleased, which is more than can be said for human beings." ~ William Ralph Inge

"Cats come and go without ever leaving." ~ Martha Curtis

"The way to keep a cat is to try to chase it away." ~ E. W. Howe

"Are cats lazy? Well, more power to them if they are. Which one of us has not entertained the dream of doing just as he likes, when and how he likes, and as much as he likes?" ~ Fernand Mery

"A little drowsing cat is an image of perfect beatitude." ~ Jules Champfleury

"He seems the incarnation of everything soft and silky and velvety, without a sharp edge in his composition, a dreamer whose philosophy is sleep and let sleep." ~ Saki

"A cat is a puzzle for which there is no solution." ~ Hazel Nicholson

"All cats are possessed of a proud spirit, and the surest way to forfeit the esteem of a cat is to treat him as an inferior being." ~ Michael Joseph

"Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet." ~ Colette

"Cats always know whether people like or dislike them. They do not always care enough to do anything about it." ~ Winifred Carriere

"There is no such thing as 'just a cat'." ~ Robert A. Heinlein

"The little furry buggers are just deep, deep wells you throw all your emotions into." ~ Bruce Schimmel

"A cat sleeps fat, yet walks thin." ~ Unknown

"There is, indeed, no single quality of the cat that man could not emulate to his advantage." ~ Carl Van Vechten

"By associating with the cat one only risks becoming richer." ~ Colette

"There is no cat language. Painful as it is for us to admit, they don't need one." ~ Barbara Holland

"Even if you have just destroyed a Ming Vase, purr. Usually all will be forgiven." ~ Lenny Rubenstein

"Does the father figure in your cat's life ever clean the litter box? My husband claims that men lack the scooping gene." ~ Barbara L. Diamond

"Every cat is special in its own way." ~ Sara Jane Clark

"We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there, lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore." ~ Mark Twain

"You own a dog; you feed a cat." ~ Unknown

"Cats have a higher sense of dignity. NEVER laugh at a cat. They can hold a grudge forever!" ~ Jim Aites

"I love cats. I love their grace and their elegance. I love their independence and their arrogance, and the way they lie and look at you, summing you up, surely to your detriment, with that unnerving, unwinking, appraising stare." ~ Joyce Stranger

"Even a kitten can 'psych' out an adult human." ~ Jim Aites

"While we would like to think our cats need us to survive, we should know better. In fact, some might say cats were responsible for domesticating man." ~ Ed Kane, Ph.D.

"I am not sure I have ever met a cat who is not spoiled." ~ Margaret Reister, D.V.M.

"Cats seize the moment when it feels right." ~ Barbara L. Diamond

"There is nothing in the animal world, to my mind, more delightful than grown cats at play. They are so swift and light and graceful, so subtle and designing, and yet so richly comic." ~ Monica Edwards

"If you want to be a psychological novelist and write about human beings, the best thing you can do is keep a pair of cats." ~ Aldous Huxley

"When Kitty acts as if she were independent, she knows we'll get off her case and leave her alone, allowing her to pick and choose only those things she wants to do." ~ Warren Eckstein

"I firmly believe cats to know when something is wrong and rise to the occasion." ~ Suzanne Mercer

"Who among us hasn't envied a cat's ability to ignore the cares of daily life and to relax completely?" ~ Karen Brademeyer

"For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by a cat." ~ Anonymous

"It is in their eyes that their magic resides." ~ Arthur Symons

"In the eyes of their proud owners, all cats are stars." ~ Mar Penner Griswald

"Cats offer us a lesson in living without complaint." ~ Anonymous

"When choosing toys, try to think like a cat." ~ Barbara L. Diamond

"Kittens--little miracles that they are--are endowed with all the natural gifts to make them perfect pets." ~ Barbara L. Diamond

"We quickly discovered that two kittens were much more fun than one." ~ Allen Lacy

"No one will question your abilities to function normally at your job when they hear you just got a kitten." ~ Dawn Myfanwy Cohen

"Most of us rather like our cats to have a streak of wickedness. I should not feel quite easy in the company of any cat that walked about the house with a saintly expression." ~ Beverly Nichols

"Cats can perceive alternate realities. They often are seen watching or tracking 'invisible' things." ~ Jim Aites

"A kitten is so flexible that she is almost double; the hind parts are equivalent to another kitten with which the forepart plays. She does not discover that her tail belongs to her until you tread on it." ~ Henry David Thoreau

"Actually, cats are QUITE good at domesticating people." ~ Unknown

"I have found my love of cats most helpful in understanding women." ~ John Simon

"Cats brighten everyone's life." ~ Andrea Rosso

"Evolution has shaped the cat into a creature that can live comfortable in our homes while retaining much of its wild charm."~ Barbara L. Diamond

"Every cat is really the most beautiful woman in the room." ~ E.V. Lucas

"All cats are grey in the dark." ~ Thomas Lodge

"A cat's best friend is his teddy bear." ~ Garfield

"A cat's purr is the sound of it generating cute." ~ Unknown

"Because of their high level of intelligence and their great natural instincts, our cats have outwitted many of us." ~ Warren Eckstein

"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals." ~ Winston Churchill

"A baited cat may grow as fierce as a lion." ~ Samuel Palmer

"An indoor cat, she once was lost for three days. When I found her, she rewarded me with a quick lick, which she immediately appeared to regret haven given me." ~ T. Schroeder

"Kitten mews become cat songs." ~ Unknown

"I believe that cats are so smart, they've convinced people that they can't be trained." ~ Warren Eckstein

"Even the stupidest cat seems to know more than any dog." ~ Eleanor Clark

"A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere." ~ Groucho Marx

"A cat's worst enemy is a closed door." ~ Unknown

"A pharaoh's profile, a Krishna's grace, tail like a question mark." ~ Louis MacNeice

"At night he sleeps sprawled at the foot of my bed, where he snores reassuringly until about five in the morning. That's when he gets cuddly: with white paw - claws retracted - he pats my face until I open my eyes. The fact that I then throw him out and slam the door in his face doesn't bother him." ~ Cathryn Jakobson

"Why then, if not to steal food, would a cat go up on the counter? Why did George Mallory try to go up on Mount Everest, which was quite a lot more trouble? Because it is there. Because of the view from the kitchen window. To lick the drips from the tap in the sink. To try to pry open the cupboards and see what's inside them, maybe to squeeze among the glassware. Or, on a rainy day, to look for small objects to knock onto the floor and see if they roll." ~ Barbara Holland