Ariadna

“With Cats, some say, one rule is true:
Don’t speak till you are spoken to.
Myself, I do not hold with that —
I say, you should ad-dress a Cat.
But always keep in mind that he
Resents familiarity.
I bow, and taking off my hat,
Ad-dress him in this form: O Cat!
But if he is the Cat next door,
Whom I have often met before
(He comes to see me in my flat)
I greet him with an oopsa Cat!
I think I've heard them call him James —
But we've not got so far as names.”
― T.S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

“Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance.”
― Saki

“When a cat flatters ... he is not insincere: you may safely take it for real kindness.”
― Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary conversations

“Insensitive people are only upset when they actually see the blood, but actually by the time that the blood has been shed the tragedy has already completed.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion