Lilian Jackson Braun · 256 pages
Rating: (25.7K votes)
“Are those cat hairs on your lapel, or have you been dating a blonde with a crew cut?”
― Lilian Jackson Braun, quote from The Cat Who Could Read Backwards
“The dance of life should be created from moment to moment with individuality and spontaneity.”
― Lilian Jackson Braun, quote from The Cat Who Could Read Backwards
“Cats have many gifts that are denied humans, and yet we tend to rate them by human standards. To understand a cat, you must realize that he has his own gifts, his own viewpoint, even his own morality. A cat’s lack of speech does not make him a lower animal. Cats have a contempt of speech. Why should they talk when they can communicate without words? They manage very well among themselves, and they patiently try to make their thoughts known to humans. But in order to read a cat, you must be relaxed and receptive.”
― Lilian Jackson Braun, quote from The Cat Who Could Read Backwards
“We designed the house to go with her looks.”
― Lilian Jackson Braun, quote from The Cat Who Could Read Backwards
“the canvas had disfigured it. Koko squirmed and squealed and made himself”
― Lilian Jackson Braun, quote from The Cat Who Could Read Backwards
“In the year 1712, a Captain Hussey, cruising in his little boat for right whales along Nantucket’s south shore, was blown out to sea in a fierce northerly gale.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, quote from In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
“Humanity seems doomed to do more evil than good. The greatest ideal on earth is human love.”
― Władysław Szpilman, quote from The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45
“Hence we must support one another, console one another, mutually help, counsel, and advise, for the measure of every man’s virtue is best revealed in time of adversity — adversity that does not weaken a man but rather shows what he is.”
― Thomas à Kempis, quote from The Imitation of Christ
“After all, if you run far enough, no one can catch you.”
― V.E. Schwab, quote from A Gathering of Shadows
“There is a simple test to define path dependence of beliefs (economists have a manifestation of it called the endowment effect). Say you own a painting you bought for $20,000, and owing to rosy conditions in the art market, it is now worth $40,000. If you owned no painting, would you still acquire it at the current price? If you would not, then you are said to be married to your position. There is no rational reason to keep a painting you would not buy at its current market rate—only an emotional investment. Many people get married to their ideas all the way to the grave. Beliefs are said to be path dependent if the sequence of ideas is such that the first one dominates.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, quote from Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
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