A cat knows how to be comfortable, how to get the people around it to serve it. In a tranquil domestic situation, the cat is a veritable manipulative genius. It seeks the soft, it seeks the warm, it prefers the quiet and it loves to be full. It displays, when it gets its own way in these matters, a degree of contentment we would all like to emulate.

It doesn't matter where you are in your own personal development, nor has it mattered where you have been culturally; dogs simply don't pass judgment on you the way all of the rest of life and all your other companions seem to.

Generally, or at least very often, people with a deep interest in animals are the best people around.

Who can go to a rodeo and then criticize the hunter? ... an expertly placed bullet would be the best gift a rodeo horse could receive.

Anyone who has owned many cats in long succession can define his or her life as a series of furry episodes.

It looks like a miniature hippopotamus with badly-fitting panty hose all over.

I am as confounded by dogs as I am indebted to them.