“The white cat Sal-al was lying on the straw matting in the empty conservatory. She looked at us with a wicked, conceited expression as if all her appetites had just been satisfied. She was beautiful. Vesta and I both said, "I wish I were a cat!" Before we got to the last word we smiled at each other in annoyance, not liking the idea that most human beings think very much alike.”

“What do you think? This ought to be the right kind of place for tough guy like you. Garbage cans. Rats galore. Plenty of cat-bums to gang around with. So scram,’ she said, dropping him… '...I told you. We just met by the river one day: that’s all. Independents, both of us. We never made each other any promises. We never -’ she said, and her voice collapsed, a tic, an invalid whiteness seized her face. The car had paused for a traffic light. Then she had the door open, she was running down the street; and I ran after her. ...she shuddered, she had to grip my arm to stand up: ‘Oh, Jesus God. We did belong to each other. He was mine.’ Then I made her a promise, I said I’d come back and find her cat. ‘I’ll take care of him, too. I promise.’ She smiled: that cheerless new pinch of a smile. ‘But what about me?’ she said, whispered, and shivered again. ‘I’m very scared, Buster. Yes, at last. Because it could go on forever. Not knowing what’s yours until you’re thrown it away. The mean reds, they’re nothing...”

“If she had touched me," he said very softly, "I would have been hers and not my own, not ever again. I wanted her to touch me but I could not let her. No cat will. We let human beings caress us because it is pleasant enough and calms them - but not her. The price is more than a cat can pay.”

“I haven’t been avoiding you,” “You’re lying. The last time we were both at dinner, you got up in the middle of Mom’s fajita presentation and said you forgot to feed your cat.”Uh-oh.“So?”“You don’t have a cat.”

“The functional disenchantment, the sweet habit of each other, had begun to put lines around her mouth, lines that looked like quotation marks--as if everything she said had already been said before...[the cat] was accustomed to much nestling and appreciation and drips from the faucet, though sometimes she would vanish outside, and they would not see her for days, only to spy her later, in the yard, dirty and matted, chomping a vole or eating old snow.”

“She smiled again. "Do you like cat?" she said."Yes," said Richard. "I quite like cats."Anaesthesia looked relieved. "Thigh?" she asked, "or breast?”