Robin

“I shall sit down,' replied the cat, sitting down, 'but I shall enter an objection with regard to your last. My speeches in no way resemble verbal muck, as you have been pleased to put it in the presence of a lady, but rather a sequence of tightly packed syllogisms, the merit of which would be appreciated by such connoisseurs as Sextus Empiricus, Martianus Capella, and, for all I know, Aristotle himself.'

Your king is in check,' said Woland.

Very well, very well,' responded the cat, and he began studying the chessboard through his opera glasses.

And so, donna,' Woland addressed Margarita, 'I present to you my retinue. This one who is playing the fool is the cat Behemoth...”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Most people would have found it grotesque, but when you're in love nothing is so abstract or horrible that it can't be thought of as cute.”
― David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames

“There is nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery. If there is a hundredth of a fraction of a false note to candor, it immediately produces dissonance, and as a result, exposure. But in flattery, even if everything is false down to the last note, it is still pleasant, and people will listen not without pleasure; with coarse pleasure, perhaps, but pleasure nevertheless.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted ...but to weigh and consider.”
― Francis Bacon