“One wood mouse can nibble a large hole.”

“...you can almost hear people’s b-holes tighten. A collective cartoon-mouse squeak of b-hole.”

“Better to be a mouse behind the wainscoting, nibbling at the wires. Better to be a spider, high up under the eaves, spinning its web.”

“The more the mouse pursues this line of of thought, the more it seems to him that the cat is a large, soft mouse.”

“A brick could be used to block a mouse hole. But something better that would not only block the hole physically, but also psychologically, would be to stuff a dead rat in the hole.
”

“We can never get rid of mouse-ideas completely, they keep turning up again and again, and nibble, nibble--no matter how often we drive them off. The best way to keep them down is to have a few good strong cat-ideas which will embrace them and ensure their not reappearing till they do so in another shape.”