Sleeping with Cats Quotes

“Writing is a futile attempt to preserve what disappears moment by moment.”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“From the time I arrived on the Cape, one of the things I chose explicitly was to put my writing first. Everything else in my life waxed and waned, but writing, I discovered during my restructuring, was my real core. Not any relationship. Not any love. Not any person. I had become more selfish and less accessible. I ceased to be the universal mommy of the tribe. I wanted to see people when I was done with my writing for the day, and not in the middle of my work time.”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“The love of a cat is unconditional but always subject to negotiation. You are never entirely in charge.”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“Cats continue to teach me a lot of what is important in my life, and also, how short it is, how we need to express our love to those for whom we feel it, daily, nightly, in every way we can. With everyone we love, we have only a limited time so we must learn to celebrate it body and soul. They have taught me how precious every moment we can enjoy can be with whatever we love, because it all passes and so do we. Writing is a futile attempt to preserve what disappears moment by moment. All that remains of my mother is what I remember and what I have written for and about her. Eventually that is all that will remain of Ira and of me. Writing sometimes feels frivolous and sometimes sacred, but memory is one of my strongest muses. I serve her with my words. So long as people read, those we loved survive however evanescently. As do we writers, saying with our life's work, Remember. Remember us. Remember me.”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“In the death of every creature we have loved, we taste our own.”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“I realized Grant would not say kaddish for her, so I did, for the next year. As I was reciting the words, which were nonsense to me, day after day, just rhythmic syllables, I began to realize I needed to learn Hebrew. It was maddening and embarrassing that I had no idea at all what I was saying every day, facing east and thinking of my mother whose face I would never see again except in dreams -- in dreams again and again.”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“It was not that I did not miss Arofa. To this day, I dream about her. I kept seeing her ghost. But I have always believed that if you love a pet, when they die, you find a pet who needs a home, and that is how you show your love. To me, giving love to new cats commemorated her in the only way that mattered.”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“He likes to complain. It feels natural to him. He was unhappy a long time, and complaining makes him feel as if he's warding off greater evil.”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“People danced a lot then. I miss that.”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“At that time, a pregnant woman could not get an abortion in Massachusetts -- but a cat could.”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“I fell into seed and nursery catalogs, discovering a new addiction I have never recovered from. Indeed, I feel quite virtuous when, reading a catalog with 150 old-fashioned and species roses in it, I order only fourteen.”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“I swear to you, although it defies logic, that at least one cat always knows when it's Saturday morning and she's entitled to tuna.”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“After I saw Fantasia (the only Walt Disney movie I saw, as my mother considered it culture; otherwise we boycotted because my mother called him a fascist and a union breaker) . . .”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“I am still that child. I eavesdrop on the conversations of strangers in restaurants, in airports and supermarkets. I drive my husband crazy with questions sometimes; but I am still a good listener and I still keep secrets.”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“I love silence but I fear emptiness.”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats

“We spend more time doing dishes than we do making love, but which figures prominently in the story of our lives?”
― Marge Piercy, Sleeping with Cats