“I really had no control over my cat. Hell, who actually had control over any cat?”

“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.”

“Damn the way he had control over me.”

“Raymond, through some curious alchemy of his own, had come really to think a divorce was something you could win, as opposed to a situation in which the wounded attempt to contain loss. She once said to her friend Annie, “It’s like fighting over who gets the litterbox after the cat is dead. Raymond has forgotten we ever had a cat; he actually wants the litterbox. Full.” She said Annie had laughed and then Martha cried”

“Who are you?" she inquired, as the cat passed by.I'm the cat that looked at a king," he replied.And I," she remarked with a toss of her head, "am the cow that jumped over the moon."Is that so?" said the cat. "Whatever for?"The cow stared. She had never been asked that question before. And suddenly it occured to her that there might something else to do than jumping over moons.”

“I never had a cat again. I still like cats, though I decided atthe time that that poor little cat who climbed the tree and neverreturned would be my first and last cat. I couldn’t forget thatlittle cat and start loving another.”