In This Chapter
With their beauty and their mysterious ways, cats have
inspired creative souls of all kinds for centuries — poets and essayists,
novelists and playwrights, painters and sculptors, photographers, and even
advertising copywriters. The legacy of these cat-loving people has been passed
down through the generations. And although the media have changed — witness,
for example, the feline explosion on the Internet — the cat has not.
The words of writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer (“And if
the cattes skyn be slyk and gay;/she wol nat dwelle in house half a day”),
Edgar Allen Poe (“This [cat] was a remarkably large and beautiful animal,
entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree”), and Oscar Wilde
(“Come forth my lovely languorous Sphinx! and put your head upon my knee! /And
let me stroke your throat and see your body spotted like the Lynx!”) strike a
chord of recognition in cat lovers today.
Those who celebrate the cat’s special — some would say
“superior” — qualities have always been around and always will be. Today,
writers such as Desmond Morris, Roger Caras, the late Alf Wright (better known
as James Herriott), and mystery writers Lilian Jackson Braun, Rita Mae Brown,
and Carole Nelson Douglas provide cat-loving readers with plenty from which to
choose in libraries and bookstores. Brown even credits her cat, Sneaky
Pie, as coauthor!
Yes, we know we promised you only ten quotes about cats.
But you’ll forgive us if we offer you a couple more, won’t you?
The Cat’s Meow
Maybe you’re the next great cat writer!
If that’s so, consider joining the nonprofit Cat Writers’ Association, an
organization founded in 1992 to promote and support those writers, editors,
artists, and photographers who look to cats for their inspiration. The CWA offers
two e-mail lists for cat-loving writers, an annual writing conference, as well
as a yearly writing competition, with more than $5,000 given out to the
winners. For information on the CWA, visit the group’s Web site at www.catwriters.org or write to Cheryl S.
Smith, CWA Secretary, 496 Gasman Road, Port Angeles, WA 98362.
The cat as inspiration
I look on the cat as a poem waiting to happen, its
pause mere prologue to prankish delight, its purr a sweet river of song. A
cat touches the soul. Whispy whisker-kisses, moist nosebumps — these are gifts
beyond measure. To artists, a loving cat is an eternal muse.
— Amy Shojai
The cat as cybernaut
Most Internet flame wars are started by cats who did
not get what they wanted for supper.
— Judy Heim
The cat as an individual
Cats must have three names — an everyday name, such as
Peter; a more particular, dignified name, such as Quaxo, Bombalurina, or
Jellyorum; and, thirdly, the name the cat thinks up for himself, his deep and
inscrutable singular Name.
— T. S. Eliot
Managing senior programmers is like herding cats.
— Dave Platt
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can’t get eight cats
to pull a sled through the snow.
— Jeff Valdez
The cat as the Boss
There is no snooze button on a cat who wants
breakfast.
— unknown
As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat.
— Ellen Perry Berkeley
Dogs have owners; cats have staff.
— unknown
The cat as companion
There is something about the presence of a cat . . .
that seems to take the bite out of being alone.
— Louis J. Camuti
One cat just leads to another.
— Ernest Hemingway
The cat as wild
As dogs of shy neighbourhoods usually betray a
slinking consciousness of being in poor circumstances — for the most part
manifested in an aspect of anxiety, an awkwardness in their play, and a
misgiving that someone is going to harness them to something, to pick up a
living — so the cats of shy neighbourhoods exhibit a strong tendency to relapse
into barbarism.
— Charles Dickens
The cat as superior
It is easy to see why the rabble dislike cats. A cat
is beautiful; it suggests ideas of luxury, cleanliness, voluptuous pleasures.
— Charles Baudelaire
Thousands of years ago cats were worshipped as gods.
Cats have never forgotten this.
— unknown
The cat mourned
Pet was never mourned as you,/Purrer of the spotless
hue,/Plumy tail, and wistful gaze,/While you humoured our queer ways . . .
Never another pet for me!/Let your place all vacant be . . .
— Thomas Hardy
No heaven will not ever heaven be, unless my cats are
there to welcome me.
— unknown
The cat as honest
A cat has emotional honesty: Human beings, for one
reason or another, may hide their feelings, but the cat does not.
— Ernest Hemingway
The cat as perfection
The smallest feline is a masterpiece.
— Leonardo da Vinci
by Gina Spadafori and Paul D. Pion
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