Cat Flap Quotes

In India, I was living in a little hut, about six feet by seven feet. It had a canvas flap instead of a door. I was sitting on my bed meditating, and a cat wandered in and plopped down on my lap. I took the cat and tossed it out the door. Ten seconds later it was back on my lap. We got into a sort of dance, this cat and I...I tossed it out because I was trying to meditate, to get enlightened. But the cat kept returning. I was getting more and more irritated, more and more annoyed with the persistence of the cat. Finally, after about a half-hour of this coming in and tossing out, I had to surrender. There was nothing else to do. There was no way to block off the door. I sat there, the cat came back in, and it got on my lap. But I did not do anything. I just let go. Thirty seconds later the cat got up and walked out. So, you see, our teachers come in many forms.

Witches cackle. Goblins growl. Spectres boo, And werewolves howl. Black cats hiss. Bats flap their wings. Mummies moan. The cold wind sings. Ogre’s roar. And crows, they caw. Vampires bahahahaha. Warlocks swish their moonlit capes. Loch Ness monsters churn the lake. Skeletons, they rattle bones While graveyards crack the old headstones. All the while the ghouls, they cry To trick-or-treaters passing by. Oh, the noise on Halloween; It makes me want to scream!

If you’ve never seen a squirrel cat before, picture a mean-faced cat with a big bushy tail and thin furry flaps of skin between his front and back legs that let him glide through the air in a fashion that somehow looks both ridiculous and terrifying.

The gulls on their wooden stilts at the tip of the bar miaowed like cats. Then they flapped up, one by one, in their ash-colored jackets, circling my head and crying.

These things matter to me, Daniel, says the man with six days to live. They are sitting on the porch in the last light. These things matter to me, son. The way the hawks huddle their shoulders angrily against hissing snow. Wrens whirring in the bare bones of bushes in winter. The way swallows and swifts veer and whirl and swim and slice and carve and curve and swerve. The way that frozen dew outlines every blade of grass. Salmonberries thimbleberries cloudberries snowberries elderberries salalberries gooseberries. My children learning to read. My wife's voice velvet in my ear at night in the dark under the covers. Her hair in my nose as we slept curled like spoons. The sinuous pace of rivers and minks and cats. Fresh bread with too much butter. My children's hands when they cup my face in their hands. Toys. Exuberance. Mowing the lawn. Tiny wrenches and screwdrivers. Tears of sorrow, which are the salt sea of the heart. Sleep in every form from doze to bone-weary. Pay stubs. Trains. The shivering ache of a saxophone and the yearning of a soprano. Folding laundry hot from the dryer. A spotless kitchen floor. The sound of bagpipes. The way horses smell in spring. Red wines. Furnaces. Stone walls. Sweat. Postcards on which the sender has written so much that he or she can barely squeeze in the signature. Opera on the radio. Bathrobes, back rubs. Potatoes. Mink oil on boots. The bands at wedding receptions. Box-elder bugs. The postman's grin. Linen table napkins. Tent flaps. The green sifting powdery snow of cedar pollen on my porch every year. Raccoons. The way a heron labors through the sky with such a vast elderly dignity. The cheerful ears of dogs. Smoked fish and the smokehouses where fish are smoked. The way barbers sweep up circles of hair after a haircut. Handkerchiefs. Poems read aloud by poets. Cigar-scissors. Book marginalia written with the lightest possible pencil as if the reader is whispering to the writer. People who keep dead languages alive. Fresh-mown lawns. First-basemen's mitts. Dish-racks. My wife's breasts. Lumber. Newspapers folded under arms. Hats. The way my children smelled after their baths when they were little. Sneakers. The way my father's face shone right after he shaved. Pants that fit. Soap half gone. Weeds forcing their way through sidewalks. Worms. The sound of ice shaken in drinks. Nutcrackers. Boxing matches. Diapers. Rain in every form from mist to sluice. The sound of my daughters typing their papers for school. My wife's eyes, as blue and green and gray as the sea. The sea, as blue and green and gray as her eyes. Her eyes. Her.

Charlemagne opened his mouth to protest, but immediately snapped it shut and slapped a hand over his nose, a look of disgust on his face. Primplepuss had struck again. Scrambling to his feet, Charlemagne hurried for the door and wrenched it open before glancing back at Maggie. The old man was struggling to escape from beneath the enormous cat's weight. "We can discuss this later, Maggie," he said. "Perhaps tonight, on the battlements, where our thoughts might be clearer." And he hurried off, ignoring Maggie's pleas for help to get the cat off him. "Sharley, wait! Give ma a hand! This cat's so heavy --oh, my God! No! How can you smell like that and live? Sharley, help!" An already distance voice floated back into his room. "Sorry, can't stop. I value my nostrils." "Prince Charlemagne, for the love of all that's decent! My God, cat, if we could harness your arse we could repel any invasion! How do you do it?" A small questioning meow was the only reply Maggie received as he flapped a handkerchief under his nose and tried to breath through his mouth without retching.

As Chrestomanci has to be a nine-lifed enchanter, it stands to reason that any creature with the luck, gifts, and abilities of nine lives is going to be far more magical than a creature with just one! Which means that all cats are magical, even though their owners are probably not. Knowing this makes cats extremely confident and self-sufficient, and they put their magic to use all the time. How else could they appear from nowhere whenever the fridge door is opened? Or make a human open a door or window for them when they have a perfectly good cat flap of their own? Or seek out and snuggle up to the one person in the room who hates cats?

Which means that all cats are magical, even though their owners are probably not. Knowing this makes cats extremely confident and self-sufficient, and they put their magic to use all the time. How else could they appear from nowhere whenever the fridge door is opened? Or make a human open a door or window for them when they have a perfectly good cat flap of their own? Or seek out and snuggle up to the one person in the room who hates cats? Most of the time, cats don’t waste their energy displaying their superiority to non-magical humans. Occasionally they will, however, try to communicate with them — perhaps by staring at their subject for a very long time, or by sitting/standing/sleeping on whatever book/newspaper/homework that person might be occupied with, or by massaging that person’s leg/stomach/shoulder with very spiky claws while purring loudly.

How could it be you?” Li Wuxin’s face was as pale as dry wax. His silver tongue that had been flapping away a moment ago tied itself into a knot as he stuttered, “We haven’t heard a word from you since you left Rufeng Sect. Here we thought you went off to wander the world; yet who knew you—you were actually down here in the muck, casting pearls before swine!” Chu Wanning snorted, his eyes cool. “You think I’m a pearl? I’m flattered.

He couldn’t have known it, but among the original run of The History of Love, at least one copy was destined to change a life. This particular book was one of the last of the two thousand to be printed, and sat for longer than the rest in a warehouse in the outskirts of Santiago, absorbing the humidity. From there it was finally sent to a bookstore in Buenos Aires. The careless owner hardly noticed it, and for some years it languished on the shelves, acquiring a pattern of mildew across the cover. It was a slim volume, and its position on the shelf wasn’t exactly prime: crowded on the left by an overweight biography of a minor actress, and on the right by the once-bestselling novel of an author that everyone had since forgotten, it hardly left its spine visible to even the most rigorous browser. When the store changed owners it fell victim to a massive clearance, and was trucked off to another warehouse, foul, dingy, crawling with daddy longlegs, where it remained in the dark and damp before finally being sent to a small secondhand bookstore not far from the home of the writer Jorge Luis Borges. The owner took her time unpacking the books she’d bought cheaply and in bulk from the warehouse. One morning, going through the boxes, she discovered the mildewed copy of The History of Love. She’d never heard of it, but the title caught her eye. She put it aside, and during a slow hour in the shop she read the opening chapter, called 'The Age of Silence.' The owner of the secondhand bookstore lowered the volume of the radio. She flipped to the back flap of the book to find out more about the author, but all it said was that Zvi Litvinoff had been born in Poland and moved to Chile in 1941, where he still lived today. There was no photograph. That day, in between helping customers, she finished the book. Before locking up the shop that evening, she placed it in the window, a little wistful about having to part with it. The next morning, the first rays of the rising sun fell across the cover of The History of Love. The first of many flies alighted on its jacket. Its mildewed pages began to dry out in the heat as the blue-gray Persian cat who lorded over the shop brushed past it to lay claim to a pool of sunlight. A few hours later, the first of many passersby gave it a cursory glance as they went by the window. The shop owner did not try to push the book on any of her customers. She knew that in the wrong hands such a book could easily be dismissed or, worse, go unread. Instead she let it sit where it was in the hope that the right reader might discover it. And that’s what happened. One afternoon a tall young man saw the book in the window. He came into the shop, picked it up, read a few pages, and brought it to the register. When he spoke to the owner, she couldn’t place his accent. She asked where he was from, curious about the person who was taking the book away. Israel, he told her, explaining that he’d recently finished his time in the army and was traveling around South America for a few months. The owner was about to put the book in a bag, but the young man said he didn’t need one, and slipped it into his backpack. The door chimes were still tinkling as she watched him disappear, his sandals slapping against the hot, bright street. That night, shirtless in his rented room, under a fan lazily pushing around the hot air, the young man opened the book and, in a flourish he had been fine-tuning for years, signed his name: David Singer. Filled with restlessness and longing, he began to read.

It is summer, and we are in a house That is not ours, sitting at a table Enjoying minutes of a rented silence, The upstairs people gone. The pigeons lull To sleep the under-tens and invalids, The tree shakes out its shadows to the grass, The roses rove through the wilds of my neglect. Our lives flap, and we have no hope of better Happiness than this, not much to show for love Than how we are, or how this evening is, Unpeopled, silent, and where we are alive In a domestic love, seemingly alone, All other lives worn down to trees and sunlight, Looking forward to a visit from the cat.

I leaned against my car and sighed, rubbing a hand over my eyes. “It’s been a long day, James. A long, somewhat odd day. Let’s not cap it off with me sitting in the yard talking to a cat, okay?”   James gave a derisive snort—strangely suiting his feline persona—and shifted into his dragon form, which is about the size of a schnauzer. He flapped his wings once and settled in, puffing a ring of smoke at me while he did.   I tried not to sigh in exasperation. “Yes, that’s much better . Talking to a cat was weird, but speaking to a miniature dragon completely fulfills my desire for normalcy.” He blew a thin jet of fire at my shoes. I jumped up with a yelp, and he snickered.   “Cute...” James had three forms: cat, small schnauzer-sized dragon, and human. The third had been a surprise until I moved in and asked him how he’d managed to do all of Douglas’s errands with no opposable thumbs. He’d morphed, poked me on the head with one of said opposable thumbs, and finished by stealing my yogurt. I still hadn’t quite figured James out.

After hunting for an hour, they found a stray cat small enough to ride in the palm of Noboru’s hand, a mottled, mewing kitten with lackluster eyes. By then they were sweating heavily, so they undressed and took turns splashing in a sink in one corner of the shed. While they bathed, the kitten was passed around. Noboru felt the kitten’s hot heart pumping against his wet naked chest. It was like having stolen into the shed with some of the dark, joy-flushed essence of bright summer sunlight. “How are we going to do it?” “There’s a log over there. We can smack it against that—it’ll be easy. Go ahead, number three.” At last the test of Noboru’s hard, cold heart! Just a minute before, he had taken a cold bath, but he was sweating heavily again. He felt it blow up through his breast like the morning sea breeze: intent to kill. His chest felt like a clothes rack made of hollow metal poles and hung with white shirts drying in the sun. Soon the shirts would be flapping in the wind and then he would be killing, breaking the endless chain of society’s loathsome taboos. Noboru seized the kitten by the neck and stood up. It dangled dumbly from his fingers. He checked himself for pity; like a lighted window seen from an express train, it flickered for an instant in the distance and disappeared. He was relieved. The chief always insisted it would take acts such as this to fill the world’s great hollows. Though nothing else could do it, he said, murder would fill those gaping caves in much the same way that a crack along its face will fill a mirror. Then they would achieve real power over existence.

A splash of light snuck beneath the a dressing room door. He heard a groan. A shuffle. A bump. A heavy sigh. "Uh, too tight." He walked toward the back, stopping outside the dressing room. The door was cracked a fraction. He rested a shoulder against the wall, and glanced inside. Grace as Catwoman blew his mind. A feline fantasy. The three-way mirror tripled his pleasure. He viewed her from every angle. Hot, sleek, fierce. The lady could fight Batman in her skintight black leather catsuit and come out the winner. After a moment she scrunched her nose, slapped her palms against her thighs. Stuck out her tongue at her reflection in the mirrors. He saw what had her so frustrated. Sympathized with her disappointment. Her costume didn't fit. The front zipper hadn't fully cleared her cleavage, which was deep and visible. She wore no bra. She gave a little hop, and her breasts bounced. Full and plump. He felt a tug at his groin. Superhero lust. He cleared his throat and made his presence known. She caught his image in the corner of the glass, and reached for the fitting room chair, positioning it between them. Like that would keep him from her. He should've looked away, but couldn't. He sensed her embarrassment. Her panic. Flight? She had nowhere to go. He blocked the door. He wasn't leaving until they'd talked. "Archibald's going to love your costume," he initiated. She didn't find him funny. Her gaze narrowed behind the molded cat-eye mask with attached ears. Her fingers clenched in her elbow-length gloves. Inspired by the movie The Dark Knight, she'd added a whip and a gun holster. Her thigh-high stiletto boots were killer, adding five inches to her height. Her image would stick with him forever. She backed against the center mirror, and nervously fingered the open flaps over her breasts. A yank on the zipper broke the tab. The metal teeth parted, and the gap widened, revealing the round inner curves of her breasts. A hint of her nipples. Dusky pink. All the way down to the dent of her navel.

It was only when the creature stepped into view on the path in front of her that her mind made the connection. Cat, she thought to herself. He was not immediately aware of her. His head was low, and he sniffed at the ground with his mouth open. Long yellow fangs extended past his lower jaw. His coat was an uneven black, darker dapples against blackness. His ears were tufted, and the muscles under his smooth fur bunched and slid as he moved. She was caught in disbelief, filled with wonder at the sight of an animal that no one had seen in ages. And then, almost immediately, her translation of an Elderling word popped into her mind. “Pard,” she breathed aloud. “A black pard.” At her whisper, he lifted his head and looked directly at her with yellow eyes. Fear flooded her. Her own scent trail. That was what he snuffed at. Her heart leaped, and then began hammering. The animal stared at her, perhaps as startled to see a human as she was to see a pard. Surely their kind had not met for generations. He opened his mouth, taking in her scent. She wanted to shriek but did not. She flung her panicky thought wide. Sintara! Sintara, a great cat stalks me, a pard! Help me! I cannot help you. Solve it yourself. The dragon’s thought was not uninterested, merely factual. Alise could feel, in that moment of connection, that the dragon had fed heavily and was sinking into a satiated stupor. Even if she had wished to rouse herself, by the time she took flight and crossed the river and located Alise… Useless thought. Focus now. The cat was watching her, and its wariness had become interest. The longer Alise stood there, frozen like a rabbit, the more his boldness would grow. Do something. “Not prey!” she shouted at the animal. She seized the lapels of her cloak and tore it open wide, holding it out to make herself twice her natural size. “Not prey!” she shouted at it again, deepening her voice. She flapped the sides of her cloak at the animal and forced her shaking body to jolt a step closer to it. If she ran, it would have her; if she stood still, it would have her. The thought galvanized her, and with a wordless roar of angry despair, she charged the beast, flapping the sides of her cloak as she ran. It crouched and she knew then it would kill her. Her deep roar became a shriek of fury, and the cat suddenly snarled back. Alise ran out of breath. For a moment, silence held between the crouched cat and the flapping woman. Then the animal wheeled and raced off into the forest. It had left the path clear, and Alise did not pause but continued her fear-charged dash. She ran in bounds, ran as she had never known that anyone could run. The forest became a blur around her. Low branches ripped at her hair and clothing, but she did not slow down. She gasped in the cold air that burned her throat and dried her mouth and still ran. She fled until darkness threatened the edges of her vision, and then she stumbled on, catching at tree trunks as she passed them to keep herself upright and moving. When finally her terror could no longer sustain her, she sank down, her back to a tree, and looked back the way she had come. Nothing moved in the forest, and when she forced her mouth to close and held her shuddering breath, she heard nothing save the pounding of her own heart. She felt as if hours passed before her breath moved easily in her dry mouth and her heart slowed to where she could hear the normal sounds of the forest. She listened, straining her ears, but heart only the wind in the bared branches. Clutching at the tree trunk, she dragged herself to her feet, wondering if her trembling legs could still hold her. Then, as she started down the path toward home, a ridiculous grin blossomed on her face. She had done it. She had faced down a pard, and saved herself, and was coming home triumphant, with wintergreen leaves for tea and berries, too. “Not prey,” she whispered hoarsely to herself, and her grin grew wider.

When a cat comes home for the first time, it can be a very stressful time. They usually come from a place they know well and are suddenly thrown into a world that smells strange, looks huge and can be very scary. For your cat's first few days in a new home, it's best to keep things simple in the beginning. Cat comfort at home In general, it is important to offer your cat the following comforts so that it feels much happier and safer in its own home: Access to a garden – This comes in various forms, but it is important that your cat has control over it. Cat flaps are ideal in this situation and can greatly improve their behavior so they don't feel trapped when they really want to be in their own territory. The territory should extend beyond the walls of your home and may even extend into several neighboring gardens. Let the cat decide if and how much it wants to go outside to create a positive environment for everyone (FIV+ cats only stay indoors, but you can do a lot to keep them busy indoors, or give them a fully fenced yard). The spaces in their home environment where they can retreat and be left alone. These areas can be hiding places under tables, in cozy cat beds and even in elevated places.

Sometimes when I look at them from a distance, I try and squint my eyes and clear my mind. I peer at them the way a stranger would— without any emotions, just observations. In this large fortress I had created around my heart, the one that let me enter situations easily and leave even more easily, how did they find a cat flap that allowed them to crawl into my soul?

Hanna was surprised by the warmth of the chicken's feet, that were scaly and bony and should not be warm at all. She could feel her father laughing at her, as he left her to it and went into the house. Hanna held the chicken away from herself with both hands and tried not to drop the thing as it flapped in the wind and twisted over the space where its head used to be. One of the cats already had the fleshy cockscomb in its little cat's teeth, and was running away with the head bobbing under its little white chin. Hanna might have screamed at all that - at the dangling, ragged neck and the cock's outraged eye - but she was too busy keeping the corpse from jerking out of her hands. The wings were agape, the russet feathers all ruffled back and showing their yellow under-down, and the body was shitting under the black tail feathers, in squirts that mimicked the squirting blood.

Sorry,’ he said with a cautious dip of the head. The stranger’s eyes flicked down to the badge pinned on his vest, came back up to his face almost at once. He muttered an apology of his own in a low, stuttery kind of voice, then turned and hurried off up the boardwalk, the tails of his greatcoat flapping about his legs, his longish black hair fanning out beneath his sweaty gray hat. Cord watched him go, suddenly feeling curious and uneasy, though he couldn’t really say why. There had just been something about the man and his manner ... He had seemed edgy, agitated by something. What? Cord followed his progress through troubled eyes. The stranger had an odd, long-stepping gait, he noticed, as if he found it hard to coordinate his movements. He hurried on up the street, glanced back over his shoulder twice. What had he been up to in that black-as-pitch dogtrot? On impulse, Cord decided to find out. The dark air stank of garbage and cat-pee. Tufted grass whispered underfoot as he headed for the far end. To his

That man out there loves you, and you’re playing cat and mouse. I don’t understand the reason.” Heat flooded Summer’s cheeks. She flapped her jaw, but no words came out. “For months I’ve watched you finger the letters from the little boy, and each time you mentioned the father’s name, your expression changed.” Summer was amazed by Nadine’s observations. Had she really been so transparent? “Do you love him?” Nadine demanded. Summer dropped her chin, and Nadine gave her a little shake. “I said, do you love him?” Summer gave her a brief, painful nod. “Then why are you holding yourself aloof?” “I … I …” “Well? What!” “I’m afraid.” Nadine pulled back and lowered her brows. “Afraid? Of what?” Tears filled Summer’s eyes. “Oh, Nadine, he’s hardly spoken two words to me. We used to talk so easily, Peter and I. But now … He’s different. And I don’t know why.” She swallowed, and one tear spilled down her cheek. “I’m afraid his heart has changed.” “Nonsense.” Though the word was curt, Nadine’s tone was gentle. “He loves you—I could see it on his face at the train depot, and I saw it on his face at his house. His heart hasn’t changed—not one bit. Something is making him keep his distance, and you must find out what it is. I’ll take the boy away for a while. You talk. You work things out.

See, squirrel cats, with their tubby feline bodies, big bushy tails, coats that change colour depending on their mood and furry flaps that stretch between their front and back limbs enabling them to glide from the treetops (or ‘fly as well as any gods-damned falcon’ as Reichis would insist), can – if you stare at them, squinty-eyed, from a distance and preferably through a drunken haze – look almost cute. They’re not. Puppy dogs are cute. Bunny rabbits are cute. Poisonous Berabesq sand rattlers are cute to somebody. Squirrel cats, though? Not cute. Evil.

Remind me to get a bigger cat flap fixed on our door.' 'Why?' 'So you can fit your big head through it.