Are Cats Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Are Cats. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
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Robert A. Heinlein
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If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember.
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Terry Pratchett (Lords and Ladies (Discworld, #14; Witches, #4))
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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.
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Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)
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Books. Cats. Life is Good.
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Edward Gorey
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If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats.
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Lemony Snicket (The Wide Window (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #3))
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In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
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Terry Pratchett
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Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.
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Christopher Hitchens (The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever)
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Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.
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James Herriot (James Herriot's Cat Stories)
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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.
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Terry Pratchett (Sourcery (Discworld, #5; Rincewind, #3))
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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,
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Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
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There are two means of refuge from the misery of life β€” music and cats.
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Albert Schweitzer
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I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?
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Tennessee Williams (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)
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Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.
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Margaret Atwood (Cat’s Eye)
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Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Cat’s Cradle)
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Ignorance killed the cat; curiosity was framed!
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C.J. Cherryh
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Meow” means β€œwoof” in cat.
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George Carlin
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Even when you have doubts, take that step. Take chances. Mistakes are never a failureβ€”they can be turned into wisdom.
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Cat Cora
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I went to collect the few personal belongings which...I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.
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Colette
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I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
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Winston S. Churchill
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What greater gift than the love of a cat.
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Charles Dickens
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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.
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Mark Twain
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Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.
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Garrison Keillor
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One day I was counting the cats and I absent-mindedly counted myself.
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Bobbie Ann Mason (Shiloh and Other Stories)
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I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.
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Edgar Allan Poe
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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.
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Neil Gaiman (Coraline)
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A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.
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Ernest Hemingway
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I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time.
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Neil Gaiman
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You know how it is with cats: They don't really have owners, they have staff.
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P.C. Cast (Chosen (House of Night, #3))
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We...we could be friends.' We COULD be rare specimens of an exotic breed of dancing African elephants, but we're not. At least, I'M not.
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Neil Gaiman (Coraline)
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If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat.
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Douglas Adams
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Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty.
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Holly Black (White Cat (Curse Workers, #1))
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Did Brother Zachariah just steal our cat?
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Cassandra Clare (City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6))
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Look at me! Look at me! Look at me NOW! It is fun to have fun But you have to know how.
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Dr. Seuss (The Cat in the Hat)
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Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It's like the tide going out, revealing whatever's been thrown away and sunk: broken bottles, old gloves, rusting pop cans, nibbled fishbodies, bones. This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future.
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Margaret Atwood (Cat’s Eye)
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Science is magic that works.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Cat’s Cradle)
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I don't want to see anyone. I lie in the bedroom with the curtains drawn and nothingness washing over me like a sluggish wave. Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead.
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Margaret Atwood (CAT'S EYE.)
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The cat that Prim got hates me, I think partly because I tried to drown it.
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Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
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If a black cat crosses your path, it signifies that the animal is going somewhere.
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Groucho Marx
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The easiest lies to tell are the ones you want to be true.
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Holly Black (White Cat (Curse Workers, #1))
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Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Cat’s Cradle)
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Pain is strange. A cat killing a bird, a car accident, a fire.... Pain arrives, BANG, and there it is, it sits on you. It's real. And to anybody watching, you look foolish. Like you've suddenly become an idiot. There's no cure for it unless you know somebody who understands how you feel, and knows how to help.
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Charles Bukowski
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You should date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve. Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn. She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book. Buy her another cup of coffee. Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice. It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does. She has to give it a shot somehow. Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world. Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two. Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series. If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are. You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype. You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots. Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads. Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
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Rosemarie Urquico
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Books. Cats. Life is good.
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T.S. Eliot
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Sleep is like a cat: It only comes to you if you ignore it.
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Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl)
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You cannot live with a paw in each world.
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Erin Hunter (Into the Wild (Warriors, #1))
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Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves all he gets.
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Neil Gaiman (Stardust)
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I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.
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Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment)
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When writing a novel, that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: 'House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.
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Neil Gaiman
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Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Cat’s Cradle)
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Izzy. My sister. She told me you liked me. Liked me, liked me.” β€œLiked you, liked you?” Magnus buried his grin in the cat’s fur. β€œSorry. Are we twelve now? I don’t recall saying anything to Isabelle . . .
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Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments, #2))
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Curiosity killed the cat,” Fesgao remarked, his dark eyes unreadable. Aly rolled her eyes. Why did everyone say that to her? β€œPeople always forget the rest of the saying,” she complained. β€œβ€˜And satisfaction brought it back.
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Tamora Pierce (Trickster's Choice (Daughter of the Lioness, #1))
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Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?' 'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. 'I don't much care where -' said Alice. 'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat. '- so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation. 'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough.
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Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)
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Time spent with a cat is never wasted.
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Colette
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Once someone's hurt you, it's harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn't stop you from wanting them.
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Holly Black (White Cat (Curse Workers, #1))
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Yeah? What'd you name all those cats?" Death, Famine, Pestilence, War, and Mr. Whiskers." You named your cats after the riders of the apocal--wait. Mr. Whiskers?" Well, there are only four horsemen.
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Richelle Mead (Storm Born (Dark Swan, #1))
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Never try to outstubborn a cat.
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Robert A. Heinlein (Time Enough for Love)
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The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat.
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Confucius
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The smallest feline is a masterpiece.
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Leonardo da Vinci
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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.
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Mark Twain
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I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
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Jean Cocteau
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Name the different kinds of people,’ said Miss Lupescu. β€˜Now.’ Bod thought for a moment. β€˜The living,’ he said. β€˜Er. The dead.’ He stopped. Then, β€˜... Cats?’ he offered, uncertainly.
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Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book)
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The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful pea green boat...
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Edward Lear
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You called her Kitten? And she let you? She put me in a coma for three days when I called her that! My balls never recovered from her smashing them into my spine!
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Jeaniene Frost (One Foot in the Grave (Night Huntress, #2))
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It is good to be a cynic β€” it is better to be a contented cat β€” and it is best not to exist at all.
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H.P. Lovecraft (Collected Essays 5: Philosophy, Autobiography and Miscellany)
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I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.
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Anne Lamott
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Where should I go?" -Alice. "That depends on where you want to end up." - The Cheshire Cat.
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Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass)
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Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.
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Margaret Atwood (Cat’s Eye)
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There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Cat’s Cradle)
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I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer." "What makes you think a writer isn't a drug salesman?
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Cat’s Cradle)
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Good organization,” said Magnus. β€œI knew the man who founded it, back in the 1800s. Woolsey Scot. Respectable old werewolf family.” Alec made an ugly sound in the back of his throat. β€œDid you sleep with him, too?” Magnus’s cat eyes widened. β€œAlexander!
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Cassandra Clare
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You're not a woman," he said finally. "You're the Grim Reaper with red hair!
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Jeaniene Frost (Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress, #1))
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He f**ks even better than he looks”, I settled on saying. Several heads turned. I didn’t care; I was pissed. β€œAnd that beautiful face is going to be clamped between my legs as soon as we get home, don’t you worry.
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Jeaniene Frost (Destined for an Early Grave (Night Huntress, #4))
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I know it is wet and the sun is not sunny, but we can have lots of good fun that is funny.
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Dr. Seuss (The Cat in the Hat (The Cat in the Hat, #1))
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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.
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Terry Pratchett (Lords and Ladies (Discworld, #14; Witches, #4))
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I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.
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Neil Gaiman (American Gods (American Gods, #1))
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People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Cat’s Cradle)
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Where are you, bloodsuckers? Here, fangy, fangy, fangy...
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Jeaniene Frost (One Foot in the Grave (Night Huntress, #2))
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In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness. And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely. "Everything must have a purpose?" asked God. "Certainly," said man. "Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God. And He went away.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Cat’s Cradle)
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Magnus rolled onto his back and put his feet up on the arm of the sofa. β€œWhat do you care if Alec’s miserable?” β€œWhat do I care?” Jace said, so loudly that Chairman Meow rolled off the couch and landed on the floor. β€œOf course I care about Alec; he’s my best friend, my parabatai. And he’s unhappy. And so are you, by the look of things. Takeout containers everywhere, you haven’t done anything to fix up the place, your cat looks dead β€”β€œ β€œHe’s not dead.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6))
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I'm the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible...
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Elizabeth Wurtzel (Prozac Nation)
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She's not here," I tell him. Buttercup hisses again. "She's not here. You can hiss all you like. You won't find Prim." At her name, he perks up. Raises his flattened ears. Begins to meow hopefully. "Get out!" He dodges the pillow I throw at him. "Go away! There's nothing left for you here!" I start to shake, furious with him. "She's not coming back! She's never ever coming back here again!" I grab another pillow and get to my feet to improve my aim. Out of nowhere, the tears begin to pour down my cheeks. "She's dead, you stupid cat. She's dead.
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Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
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I have an apple that thinks its a pear. And a bun that thinks it’s a cat. And a lettuce that thinks its a lettuce." "It’s a clever lettuce, then." "Hardly," she said with a delicate snort. "Why would anything clever think it’s a lettuce?" "Even if it is a lettuce?" I asked. "Especially then," she said. "Bad enough to be a lettuce. How awful to think you are a lettuce too.
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Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Man’s Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
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What have you done to my cat?" Magnus demanded... "You drank his blood, didn't you? You said you weren't hungry!" Simon was indignant. "I did not drink his blood. He's fine!" He poked the Chairman in the stomach. The cat yawned. "Second, you asked me if I was hungry when you were ordering pizza, so I said no, because I can't eat pizza. I was being polite." "That doesn't get you the right to eat my cat." "Your cat is fine!" Simon reached to pick up the tabby, who jumped indignantly to his feet and stalked off the table. "See?" "Whatever.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Lost Souls (The Mortal Instruments, #5))
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Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to. Alice: I don't much care where. The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go. Alice: ...So long as I get somewhere. The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.
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Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)
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And how do you know that you're mad? "To begin with," said the Cat, "a dog's not mad. You grant that?" I suppose so, said Alice. "Well then," the Cat went on, "you see a dog growls when it's angry, and wags it's tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.
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Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass)
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Hey, pretty thing," he said. "What's in the bag?" "Holy water," said Jace, reappearing beside her as if he'd been conjured up like a genie. A sarcastic blond genie with a bad attitude. "Oooh, a Shadowhunter," said the vampire. "Scary." With a wink he melted back into the crowd. "Vampires are such prima donnas," Magnus sighed from the doorway. "Honestly, I don't know why I have these parties." "Because of your cat," Clary reminded him. Magnus perked up. "That's true. Chairman Meow deserves my every effort.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
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Elend smiled. "Oh, come on. You have to admit that you're unusual, Vin. You're like some strange mixture of a noblewoman, a street urchin, and a cat. Plus, you've mangaged - in our short three years together - to kill not only my god, but my father, my brother, and my fiancΓ©e. That's kind of like a homicidal hat trick.
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Brandon Sanderson (The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, #3))
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Was it weird hearing from Jace?" asked Simon, his voice carefully neutral. "I mean, since you found out..." His voice trailed off. Yes?"said Clary, her voice sharply edged. "Since I found out what? That he's a killer transvestite who molests cats?" No wonder that cat of his hates everyone." Oh, shut up, Simon," Clary said crossly.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
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Did you ever want to set someone's head on fire, just to see what it looked like? Did you ever stand in the street and think to yourself, I could make that nun go blind just by giving her a kiss? Did you ever lay out plans for stitching babies and stray cats into a Perfect New Human? Did you ever stand naked surrounded by people who want your gleaming sperm, squirting frankincense, soma and testosterone from every pore? If so, then you're the bastard who stole my drugs Friday night. And I'll find you. Oh, yes.
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Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan, Vol. 5: Lonely City)
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Books can be possessive, can't they? You're walking around in a bookstore and a certain one will jump out at you, like it had moved there on its own, just to get your attention. Sometimes what's inside will change your life, but sometimes you don't even have to read it. Sometimes it's a comfort just to have a book around. Many of these books haven't even had their spines cracked. 'Why do you buy books you don't even read?' our daughter asks us. That's like asking someone who lives alone why they bought a cat. For company, of course.
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Sarah Addison Allen (The Sugar Queen)
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Achilles was looking at me. β€œYour hair never quite lies flat, here.” He touched my head, just behind my ear. β€œI don’t think I’ve ever told you how I like it.” My scalp prickled where his fingers had been. β€œYou haven’t,” I said. β€œI should have.” His hand drifted down to the vee at the base of my throat, drew softly across the pulse. β€œWhat about this? Have I told you what I think of this, just here?” β€œNo,” I said. β€œThis surely then.” His hand moved across the muscles of my chest; my skin warmed beneath it. β€œHave I told you of this?” β€œThat you have told me.” My breath caught a little as I spoke. β€œAnd what of this?” His hand lingered over my hips, drew down the line of my thigh. β€œHave I spoken of it?” β€œYou have.” β€œAnd this? Surely I would not have forgotten this.” His cat’s smile. β€œTell me I did not.” β€œYou did not.” β€œThere is this too.” His hand was ceaseless now. β€œI know I have told you of this.” I closed my eyes. β€œTell me again,” I said.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Calvin: I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog! Want to see my book report? Hobbes: (Reading Calvin's paper) "The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender modes." Calvin: Academia, here I come!
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Bill Watterson (Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat (Calvin and Hobbes, #9))
β€œ
Style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art Bullfighting can be an art Boxing can be an art Loving can be an art Opening a can of sardines can be an art Not many have style Not many can keep style I have seen dogs with more style than men, although not many dogs have style. Cats have it with abundance. When Hemingway put his brains to the wall with a shotgun, that was style. Or sometimes people give you style Joan of Arc had style John the Baptist Jesus Socrates Caesar GarcΓ­a Lorca. I have met men in jail with style. I have met more men in jail with style than men out of jail. Style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done. Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water, or you, naked, walking out of the bathroom without seeing me.
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Charles Bukowski
β€œ
I was sentimental about many things: a woman’s shoes under the bed; one hairpin left behind on the dresser; the way they said, 'I’m going to pee.' hair ribbons; walking down the boulevard with them at 1:30 in the afternoon, just two people walking together; the long nights of drinking and smoking; talking; the arguments; thinking of suicide; eating together and feeling good; the jokes; the laughter out of nowhere; feeling miracles in the air; being in a parked car together; comparing past loves at 3am; being told you snore; hearing her snore; mothers, daughters, sons, cats, dogs; sometimes death and sometimes divorce; but always carring on, always seeing it through; reading a newspaper alone in a sandwich joint and feeling nausea because she’s now married to a dentist with an I.Q. of 95; racetracks, parks, park picnics; even jails; her dull friends; your dull friends; your drinking, her dancing; your flirting, her flirting; her pills, your fucking on the side and her doing the same; sleeping together
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Charles Bukowski (Women)
β€œ
She smiled. Her skin looked whiter than he recalled, and dark spidery veins were beginning to show beneath its surface. Her hair was still the color of spun silver and her eyes were still green as a cat’s. She was still beautiful. Looking at her, he was in London again. He saw the gaslight and smelled the smoke and dirt and horses, the metallic tang of fog, the flowers in Kew Gardens. He saw a boy with black hair and blue eyes like Alec’s, heard violin music like the sound of silver water. He saw a girl with long brown hair and a serious face. In a world where everything went away from him eventually, she was one of the few remaining constants. And then there was Camille.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments, #4))
β€œ
Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night. Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else. Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world. Was Rorschach. Does that answer your Questions, Doctor?
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Alan Moore (Watchmen)
β€œ
It is also then that I wish I believed in some sort of life after life, that in another universe, maybe on a small red planet where we have not legs but tails, where we paddle through the atmosphere like seals, where the air itself is sustenance, composed of trillions of molecules of protein and sugar and all one has to do is open one's mouth and inhale in order to remain alive and healthy, maybe you two are there together, floating through the climate. Or maybe he is closer still: maybe he is that gray cat that has begun to sit outside our neighbor's house, purring when I reach out my hand to it; maybe he is that new puppy I see tugging at the end of my other neighbor's leash; maybe he is that toddler I saw running through the square a few months ago, shrieking with joy, his parents huffing after him; maybe he is that flower that suddenly bloomed on the rhododendron bush I thought had died long ago; maybe he is that cloud, that wave, that rain, that mist. It isn't only that he died, or how he died; it is what he died believing. And so I try to be kind to everything I see, and in everything I see, I see him.
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Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
β€œ
No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Here’s a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages 1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. 2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5. 3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on β€œBright Eyes.” 4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank. 5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13. 6) Nadia ComΔƒneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14. 7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15. 8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil. 9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19. 10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961. 11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936. 12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23 13) Issac Newton wrote PhilosophiΓ¦ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24 14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record 15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity 16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France 17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures β€œDavid” and β€œPieta” by age 28 18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world 19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter 20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean 21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind 22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest 23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech β€œI Have a Dream." 24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics 25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight 26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions. 27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon. 28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" 29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas 30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger 31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States 32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out. 33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games" 34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out. 35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa. 36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president. 37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels. 38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat". 40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived 41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise 42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out 43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US 44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats 45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President
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Pablo
β€œ
Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately. Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.
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Mark Twain (Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings)
β€œ
I've apparently been the victim of growing up, which apparently happens to all of us at one point or another. It's been going on for quite some time now, without me knowing it. I've found that growing up can mean a lot of things. For me, it doesn't mean I should become somebody completely new and stop loving the things I used to love. It means I've just added more things to my list. Like for example, I'm still beyond obsessed with the winter season and I still start putting up strings of lights in September. I still love sparkles and grocery shopping and really old cats that are only nice to you half the time. I still love writing in my journal and wearing dresses all the time and staring at chandeliers. But some new things I've fallen in love with -- mismatched everything. Mismatched chairs, mismatched colors, mismatched personalities. I love spraying perfumes I used to wear when I was in high school. It brings me back to the days of trying to get a close parking spot at school, trying to get noticed by soccer players, and trying to figure out how to avoid doing or saying anything uncool, and wishing every minute of every day that one day maybe I'd get a chance to win a Grammy. Or something crazy and out of reach like that. ;) I love old buildings with the paint chipping off the walls and my dad's stories about college. I love the freedom of living alone, but I also love things that make me feel seven again. Back then naivety was the norm and skepticism was a foreign language, and I just think every once in a while you need fries and a chocolate milkshake and your mom. I love picking up a cookbook and closing my eyes and opening it to a random page, then attempting to make that recipe. I've loved my fans from the very first day, but they've said things and done things recently that make me feel like they're my friends -- more now than ever before. I'll never go a day without thinking about our memories together.
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Taylor Swift (Taylor Swift Songbook: Guitar Recorded Versions)