“You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. . . . Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat's meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.”

“Cats are to dogs what modern people are to the people we used to have. Cats are slimmer, cleaner, more attractive, disloyal, and lazy. It's easy to understand why the cat has eclipsed the dog as modern America's favorite pet. People like pets to possess the same qualities they do. Cats are irresponsible and recognize no authority, yet are completely dependent on others for their material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the fun of it. In fact, cats possess so many of the same qualities as some people (expensive girlfriends, for instance) that it's often hard to tell the people and the cats apart.”

“Well, look at it another way: why shouldn’t there be cats in a zoo?" I said."They’re animals, too, right?""Cats and dogs are your run-of-the-mill-type animals. Nobody’s going to pay money to see them," he said. "Just look around you-they’re everywhere. Same thing with people.”

“Dogs are exceptionally intelligent creatures. My dog, for example, taught me that not only am I a cat person, but that it isn’t really a dog at all, but that it is in fact a cat.”

“From CATS ARE KIND"I saw a dog pursuing automobiles;On and on he sped.I was puzzled by this;I accosted the dog.'If you catch one,' I said'What will you do with it?''Dumb cat,' he cried,And ran on.”

“No good has ever come from feeling guilty, neither intelligence, policy, nor compassion. The guilty do not pay attention to the object but only to themselves, and not even to their own interests, which might make sense, but to their anxieties.”