A Cat's Personality

"Purring would seem to be, in her case, an automatic safety-valve device for dealing with happiness overflow."
- Monica Edwards

"Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms."
- George Eliot

"A cat is more intelligent than people believe, and can be taught any crime."
-Mark Twain Notebook, 1895

"I simply can't resist a cat, particularly a purring one. They are the cleanest, cunningest, and most intelligent things I know, outside of the girl you love, of course."
- Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field, Fisher

"The cat has too much spirit to have no heart."
- Ernest Menaul

"One reason we admire cats is for their proficiency in one-upmanship. They always seem to come out on top, no matter what they are doing, or pretend they do."
- Barbara Webster

"I have noticed that what cats most appreciate in a human being is not the ability to produce food which they take for granted--but his or her entertainment value."
- Geoffrey Household

"The last thing I would accuse a cat of is innocence."
- Edward Paley (1786-1847)

"Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose."
- Garrison Keillor

"Honest as the Cat when the meat's out of reach."
- Old English saying

"There are no ordinary cats."

- Colette

"Cats are a mysterious kind of folk. There is more passing in their minds than we are aware of."
- Sir Walter Scott

"The cat seldom interferes with other people's rights. His intelligence keeps him from doing many of the fool things that complicate life."
- Carl Van Vechten

"A cat is there when you call her - if she doesn't have anything better to do."
- Bill Adler

"The ideal of calm exists in a sitting cat."
- Jules Reynard

"A cat can purr its way out of anything."
- Donna McCrohan

"In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats."- English Proverb

"To please himself only, the cat purrs."
- Irish Proverb

"All you have to remember is Rule 1: When in doubt - wash."

- Paul Gallico

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

"The mathematical probability of a common cat doing exactly as it pleases is the one scientific absolute in the world."
- Lynn M. Osband

"Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well."
- Missy Dizick

"A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not."
- Ernest Hemingway

"Before a cat will condescend to treat you as a trusted friend, some little token of esteem is needed, like a dish of cream."
- T. S. Eliot