On Cats

Having a bunch of cats around is good. If you're feeling bad, just look at the cats, you'll feel better, because they know that everything is, just as it is.

Cats tell me without effort all that there is to know.

The more cats you have, the longer you live. If you have a hundred cats, you’ll live ten times longer than if you have ten. Someday this will be discovered, and people will have a thousand cats and live forever.

about our argument tonight whatever it was about and no matter how unhappy it made us feel remember that there is a cat somewhere adjusting to the space of itself with a delightful wonderment of easiness. in other words magic persists without us no matter what we do against it.

The cat is the beautiful devil.

Animals are inspirational. They don’t know how to lie. They are natural forces.

I don’t like love as a command, as a search. It must come to you, like a hungry cat at the door.

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.

A cat is only itself.

TV can make me ill in five minutes, but I can look at an animal for hours and find nothing but grace and glory, life as it should be.

warm light alone tonight in this house, alone with 6 cats who tell me without effort all that there is to know.

I walked up the driveway. The cats were sprawled about, pooped. In my next life I want to be a cat. To sleep 20 hours a day and wait to be fed. To sit around licking my ass. Humans are too miserable and angry and single-minded.

And a cat never knows fear—finally—he only winds up into the spring of the sea and the rock, and even in a death-fight he does not think of anything except the majesty of darkness.

the strays keep arriving: now we have 5 cats and they are tenuous, flighty, con- ceited, naturally bright and awesomely beautiful.         one

Writing is also my cat. Writing lets me face it.

his is the last poem of any number of poems tonight, there’s one drink of wine left and both of those guys they are asleep across the top of my feet. I can feel the gentle weight of them the touch of fur I am aware of their breathing: good things happen often, remember that as the Bombs trundle out in their magnificent dumbness these at my feet know more, are more, and instants of the moments explode larger and a lucky past can never be killed.

My Cats I know. I know. they are limited, have different needs and concerns. but I watch and learn from them. I like the little they know, which is so much. they complain but never worry, they walk with a surprising dignity. they sleep with a direct simplicity that humans just can’t understand. their eyes are more beautiful than our eyes. and they can sleep 20 hours a day without hesitation or remorse. 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.

my god," they will say, "all Chinaski writes about are cats!" "my god," they used to say, "all Chinaski writes about are whores!" the complainers will complain and keep buying my books: they love the way I irritate them.

I view his furry storage tanks – what can a man think about while looking at a cat’s nuts? Certainly not the sunken navies of great sea battles.

I dislike cute cat poems but I've written one anyhow.

The tailless, cross-eyed cat came to the door one day, and we let him in. Old pink eyes. Quite a guy. Animals are inspirational. They don’t know how to lie. They are natural forces. TV can make me ill in five minutes, but I can look at an animal for hours and find nothing but grace and glory, life as it should be.

Writing lets me face it. It chills me out. For a while anyhow. Then my wires get crossed and I have to do it all over again. I can't understand writers who decide to stop writing. How do they chill out?

things begin to lose their natural value as they near human endeavor. nothing against Beethoven: he did fine for what he was but I wouldn't want him on my rug with one leg over his head while he was licking his balls.