When a Cat adopts you, and I am not superstitious at all I don't mean only Black cats there is nothing to be done about it except to put up with it and wait until the wind changes.
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.
The cat will keep his side of the bargain. He will kill mice, and he will be kind to babies when he is in the house, just so long as they do not pull his tail too hard. But when he has done that, and between times, 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 on the Wet Wild trees or on the Wet Wild roofs, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.
Her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct, she thought, walking on. If you put her in a room with someone, up went her back like a cat's; or she purred.
Old maids claw as cats do. They not only inflict wounds but experience pleasure in doing so. Nor will they fail to remind their victims of the blood drawn.
"All right", said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
A person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was gitting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn't ever going to grow dim or doubtful.
For as from the same piece of clay a potter may fashion either a pot or a tile, so the Devil may shape a witch into a wolf or a cat or even a goat, without subtracting from her and without adding to her at all. For this occurs just as clay is first molded into one, then shaped into another form, for the Devil is a potter and his witches are but clay.
Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,' Like the poor cat i' the adage?