10 Quotes About Cats From Great Writers
We’ve stepped into the era where one of the standard icebreakers in a conversation is – “Are you a Cat person or a Dog person?” Judging from the available records, one should spare a writer the question for it goes without saying that a writer is almost always a bigger fan of cats. Listed below are interesting facts corroborating the cat-writer chemistry.
Did you ever wonder about the origin of the ubiquitous phrase ‘scaredy cat’? It so turns out that it was coined by Dorothy Parker in a short story called ‘The Waltz’ from 1933. The Oxford English Dictionary credited her for using it for the first time ever! Her pet cat has been immortalized after a historic picture of the cat perched on her bed had been clicked.
Charles Bukowski’s affinity for the feline species is apparent in his poem ‘My cats’ where he puts forth: “When I am feeling low, all I have to do is watch my cats and my courage returns. I study these creatures, they are my teachers.”
All-time favorite Mark Twain adored cats and had many of his own; their names were as crazy as Beelzebub, Blatherskite, Buffalo Bill, Sour Mash, Zoroaster, and Satan. He voiced his passion for them in the popular quote: “When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction.”
When it comes to being the most devout cat fanatic, Ernest Hemingway most certainly takes the icing on the cake. He was a proud master of over forty polydactyl (six-toed) cats. A ship’s captain had given Hemingway a white six-toed cat named Snowball, who was the predecessor of his other cats including Crazy Christian, Ecstasy, F. Puss, Fats, Alley Cat, Skunk, Thruster, and Willy.
Even though his imagination touched wicked heights with a man gouging the eye of a helpless cat in “The Black Cat”, Edgar Allan Poe truly loved cats. He christened his little cat Catterina.
We cannot exclude T.S. Elliot from this list. His fascination for cats is manifested in his collection of quirky poems – Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats published in 1939. Comprising Macavity: The Mystery Cat, Cat Morgan and The Naming of Cats, this collection proves how deeply Elliot immersed himself in feline psychology andsociology.
