“Because I’m a cat. A big one, the Panther of Rough Storms, in fact. But still a cat. If there’s a saucer of milk to spill, I’d rather spill it than let it lie. If my mistress grows absent-minded and leaves a ball of yarn about, I’ll bat it between my paws, and unravel it. Because it’s fun. Because it’s what cats do best.”

“Schrödinger’s cat was a Siamese cat, must have been, because if it’s at once alive and dead, it’s a zombie, and the only zombie cats are Siamese cats.”

“What we’re trying to do is write cricket bats, so that when we throw up an idea and give it a little knock, it might … travel … ([He] picks up the script.) Now, what we’ve got here is a lump of wood of roughly the same shape trying to be a cricket bat, and if you hit a ball with it, the ball would travel about ten feet and you will drop the bat and dance about shouting ‘Ouch!’ with your hands stuck into your armpits. (indicating the cricket bat) This isn’t better because someone says it’s better, or because there’s a conspiracy by the MCC to keep cudgels out of Lords. It’s better because it’s better.”

“Because, Cat, it’s the feminine persuasion that’s always the deadliest.”

“I had not accounted for the fact that I had about as much control over my situation as a tennis ball does when a cat is toying with it. I was no more than a plaything of some unseen and immensely powerful otherworldly force that would not be denied its fun, and certainly not because of my pathetically ineffective countermeasures.”

“I am no warrior, but I am a ThunderClan cat. I stay in the nursery rather than hunt and fight because that is what I do best. I care for our young as though they were my own. This is my gift to the Clan, but I do it in my own chosen name.”