Top 20 Quotes & Sayings by Carl Van Vechten

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American writer Carl Van Vechten.

Last updated on December 25, 2024.

Carl Van Vechten was an American writer and artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. He gained fame as a writer, and notoriety as well, for his 1926 novel Nigger Heaven. In his later years, he took up photography and took many portraits of notable people. Although he was married to women for most of his adult life, Van Vechten engaged in numerous homosexual affairs over his lifetime.

American - Writer | June 17, 1880 - December 21, 1964

Source: Wikipedia

A cat is never vulgar.

Carl Van Vechten

An ordinary kitten will ask more questions than any five-year-old.

Carl Van Vechten

The cat, it is well to remember, remains the friend of man because it pleases him to do so and not because he must.

Carl Van Vechten

As an inspiration to the author, I do not think the cat can be over-estimated. He suggests so much grace, power, beauty, motion, mysticism. I do not wonder that many writers love cats; I am only surprised that all do not.

Carl Van Vechten

There is, indeed, no single quality of the cat that man could not emulate to his advantage.

Carl Van Vechten

Cats seldom make mistakes, and they never make the same mistake twice.

Carl Van Vechten

A thing of beauty is a boy forever.

Carl Van Vechten

The cat seldom interferes with other people's rights. His intelligence keeps him from doing many of the fool things that complicate life.

Carl Van Vechten

Paris is not a city I should care to approach for the first time after I had passed forty.

Carl Van Vechten

The lack of imagination or invention most people display in naming pussies is almost beyond credence.

Carl Van Vechten

Catnip is vodka and whisky to most cats.

Carl Van Vechten

Note 4. For these and other reasons the cat is also very hard to photograph. The best photographs are instantaneous, as the mere breathing of a cat will blur the fur in a time exposure.

Carl Van Vechten

Cleanliness in the cat world is usually a virtue put above godliness.

Carl Van Vechten

Cats have gnosis to a degree that is granted to few bishops.

Carl Van Vechten

There are ... two kinds of people in this world, those who long to be understood and those who long to be misunderstood. It is the irony of life that neither is gratified.

Carl Van Vechten

The cat is the only animal without visible means of support who still manages to find a living in the city.

Carl Van Vechten

...with a cat you stand on much the same footing that you stand with a fine and dignified friend; if you forfeit his respect and confidence the relationship suffers. The cat, it is well to remember, remains the friend of man because it pleases him to do so and not because he must.

Carl Van Vechten