A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick -- a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.
Neil GaimanRead
I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote humorously highlights the difficulty of achieving unified action among independent beings, like cats.
In this quote, Neil Gaiman emphasizes the inherent challenges of persuasion and the unique independence of individual beings, using cats as a metaphor. He suggests that even the most powerful figures—prophets, kings, or divine beings—would struggle to get a multitude of cats to act in unison, reflecting on the complexities of cooperation and influence in life.
Themes
CatsPersuasionIndependenceCooperationChallenge
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be utilized in a discussion about teamwork and leadership challenges.
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As a teenager I wrote to R.A. Lafferty. And he responded, too, with letters that were like R.A. Lafferty short stories, filled with elliptical answers to straight questions and simple answers to complicated ones.
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Nothing’s changed. You’ll go home. You’ll be bored. You’ll be ignored. No one will listen to you, really listen to you. You’re too clever and too quiet for them to understand. They don’t even get your name right.
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I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend...I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend.
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