Quotes About Patted

The present looks back at some great figure of an earlier century and wonders, Was he on our side? Was he a goodie? What a lack of self-confidence this implies: the present wants both to patronise the past by adjudicating on its political acceptability, and also to be flattered by it, to be patted on the back and told to keep up the good work.

I thought the evening not wholly wasted, for Mrs. Garden, his landlady, has an interesting cat who made certain advances to me. But when Andrew patted him and called him 'Poor pussy' the intelligent animal hissed at him. 'You mustn't be too familiar with a cat,' I advised Andrew. 'And you must speak respectfully *to* and *of* him.

'Stress' was the catch-all every pamper-pedlar I spoke to used to explain why healthy women feel the need to be regularly patted, petted and preened into a state of babyish beatification.