“When a horse wants to display himself...he lifts his neck up high and flexes his poll haughtily, and picks his legs up freely, and keeps his tail up.”

“A male frigate bird blows up a wild red pouch on his neck. He can keep it puffed up for hours. It is his way of impressing the girls.”

“He had picked up languages the way most sailors pick up diseases; languages were his gonorrhoea, his syphilis, his scurvy, his ague, his plague.”

“Tough guys toughen up when faced with adversity. So he flexes his gag reflex and steps inside.”

“... and when the moon gets up and night comes, he is the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him. Then he goes out to the Wet Wild Woods or up the Wet Wild Trees or on the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.”

“Though loyal and able and brave, Pea had never displayed the slightest ability to learn from his experience, though his experience was considerable. Time and again he would walk up on the wrong side of a horse that was known to kick, and then look surprised when he got kicked.”