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Book: The Cat Inside
Quotes of Book: The Cat Inside
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  1. William S. Burroughs _ The Cat Inside

    Like most qualities, cuteness is delineated by what it isn't. Most people aren't cute at all, or if so they quickly outgrow their cuteness ... Elegance, grace, delicacy, beauty, and a lack of self-consciousness: a creature who knows he is cute soon isn't.
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  2. William S. Burroughs _ The Cat Inside

    There is a kidney-shaped fish pool outside the picture window. I cleaned it out and put in some large goldfish I bought in a bait store. The cats are always trying to catch the fish, with no success. One time the white cat leapt for a frog across the pool. The frog dove in and the cat fell in. He is trouble-prone.
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  3. William S. Burroughs _ The Cat Inside

    For the last four years of her life, Mother was in a nursing home called Chateins in St. Louis ... {S}ix months before she died I sent a Mother's Day card. There was a horrible, mushy poem in it. I remember feeling "vaguely guilty.
    book-quotemothersparentssentimentality

  4. William S. Burroughs _ The Cat Inside

    And there are my cats, engaged in a ritual that goes back thousands of years, tranquilly licking themselves after the meal. Practical animals, they prefer to have others provide the food ... some of them do. There must have been a split between the cats who accepted domestication and those who did not.
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  5. William S. Burroughs _ The Cat Inside

    The white cat symbolizes the silvery moon prying into corners and cleansing the sky for the day to follow. The white cat is "the cleaner" or "the animal that cleans itself," described by the Sanskrit word Margaras, which means "the hunter who follows the track; the investigator; the skip tracer." The white cat is the hunter and the killer, his path lighted by the silvery moon. All dark, hidden places and beings are revealed in that inexorably gentle light. You can't shake your white cat because your white cat is you. You can't hide from your white cat because your white cat hides with you.
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  6. William S. Burroughs _ The Cat Inside

    May 4, 1985. I am packing for a short trip to New York to discuss the cat book with Brion. In the front room where the kittens are kept, Calico Jane is nursing one black kitten. I pick up my Tourister. It seems heavy. I look inside and there are her other four kittens."Take care of my babies. Take them with you wherever you go.
    book-quotekittens

  7. William S. Burroughs _ The Cat Inside

    Last night I encountered a dream cat with a very long neck and a body like a human fetus, gray and transluscent. I don't know what it needs or how to provide for it. Another dream years ago of a human child with eyes on stalks. It is very small, but can walk and talk "Don't you want me?" Again, I don't know how to care for the child. But I am dedicated to protecting and nurturing him at any cost! It is the function of the Guardian to protect hybrids and mutants in the vulnerable stage of infancy.
    book-quotecatmutant

  8. William S. Burroughs _ The Cat Inside

    We are the cats inside. We are the cats who cannot walk alone, and for us there is only one place.
    book-quotepsychologydream

  9. William S. Burroughs _ The Cat Inside

    The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. Of course he wants care and shelter. You don't buy love for nothing.
    book-quotelove

  10. William S. Burroughs _ The Cat Inside

    Cat hate reflects an ugly, stupid, loutish, bigoted spirit. There can be no compromise with this Ugly Spirit.
    book-quotecatshate-hatred

  11. William S. Burroughs _ The Cat Inside

    Evidence indicates that cats were first tamed in Egypt. The Egyptians stored grain, which attracted rodents, which attracted cats. {No evidence that such a thing happened with the Mayans, though a number of wild cats are native to the area.} I don't think this is accurate. It is certainly not the whole story. Cats didn't start as mousers. Weasels and snakes and dogs are more efficient as rodent-control agents. I postulate that cats started as psychic companions, as Familiars, and have never deviated from this function.
    book-quoteegypt

  12. William S. Burroughs _ The Cat Inside

    The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself.
    book-quote
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