A Goat Quotes & Sayings

If we can expect another journey tomorrow, we should secure horses," Ferrin went on. "And if the sun will be shining, perhaps a goat for Aram."
"Keep it up," Aram dared him through clenched teeth.
"Is a goat too large and unruly?" Ferrin asked? "Maybe we should saddle a raccoon."
"Odd how these taunts tend to fade after sundown," Aram growled, taking a large bite of bread.
"But a new day always dawns," Ferrin replied. "And we can all use some entertainment."
Aram glowered. "Then perhaps tonight I should pull you apart and let the others puzzle you back together."
"That's the spirit!" Ferrin applauded. "Taunt back! I get the sense you've seldom had to deal with ridicule."
Aram appeared to be resisting a pleased little smile. — Brandon Mull

I noticed that all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same fifty percent rate. Half the time I get what I want, half the time I don't ... Same as the four-leaf clover and the horseshoe ... same as the voodoo lady who tells you your fortune by squeezing the goat's testicles. It's all the same ... so just pick your superstition, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself ... — George Carlin

Poetry is a plan for a slit in the face of a bronze fountain goat and the path of fresh drinking water. — Carl Sandburg

But why bother trying to turn a monkey into a goat? — Lisa See

I remember in the spring of 1971, a hundred thousand people converged on the Pentagon in June of 1971. They threw blood; I guess it was goat's blood or something, on the steps to the Pentagon. People were being accused of being murderers and baby killers. You just can't imagine the civic outrage. — Wesley Clark

I have been tight as a tick! Fried as a mink! Stiff as a goat! — Tallulah Bankhead

I never made it to the school choir because the music teacher didn't like my voice. I was pretty sad. But he was probably right; I did have a voice a bit like a goat, but my dad told me to never give up and to keep going, and it's paid off. — Shakira

SO NOW IT'S 1979. Year of the Goat. The Earth Goat. Here are some things you might remember. Margaret Thatcher had just been elected prime minister. Idi Amin had fled Uganda. Jimmy Carter would soon be facing the Iran hostage crisis. In the meantime, he was the first and last president ever to be attacked by a swamp rabbit. That man could not catch a break. — Karen Joy Fowler

At a great distance appeared with the same pomp the sheep of Thebes, the dog of Bubastis, the cat of Phoebe, the crocodile of Arsinoe, the goat of Mendes, and all the inferior gods of Egypt, who came to pay homage to the great ox, to the mighty Apis, as powerful as Isis, Osiris, and Horus, united together.
In the midst of the demi-gods, forty priests carried an enormous basket, filled with sacred onions. These were, it is true, gods, but they resembled onions very much.
("The White Bull") — Voltaire

At the next Goat Guys show, the band came on stage with their wings, their haunches, their horns. The audience swooned at their feet.
Cherokee spun and spun until she was dizzy, until she was not sure anymore if she or the stage was in motion.
Afterwards two girls in lingerie and over-the-knee leather boots offered a joint to Raphael and Angel Juan. All four of them were smoking backstage when Cherokee and Witch Baby came through the door.
Witch Baby went and wriggled onto Angel Juan's lap. He was wearing the horns and massaging his temples. His face looked constricted with pain until he inhaled the smoke from the joint.
"Are you okay?" Witch Baby asked.
"My head's killing me. — Francesca Lia Block

Your mother was a goatherder. (Savitar)
It's an honorable profession. (Takeshi)
Yeah, for a goat. (Savitar) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Shakra scowled. "You're a moron."
"Being rude does not make you more intelligent that I."
"No, being more intelligent than you makes me more intelligent than you, you goat-brained simpleton."
"I did not come here to be insulted."
"What, do you have somewhere special to go for that kind of thing? — Derek Landy

A Myrddraal has less cunning than a woman, and a Trolloc fights with more honor. And a goat has more sense. — Robert Jordan

Have you seen burning bone, my wife? It starts like a roasted goat, but then the meat strips away to feed the fire, and the bone is left naked and alone. It twists and shatters, marrow leaking into the flames, until only the dust is left."

"That is what happens to everything, my lord," I said to him. "If only the fire can be made hot enough."

"Would you like to see it?" he asked. — E.K. Johnston

Lincoln received one more painful reminder that he was still a target for criticism. Walking between his home and office, he noticed a group of young boys teasing an agitated stray goat. When the animal hungrily spied the taller target, it turned from the children and tried butting Lincoln instead, until he was forced to seize it by the horns in self-defense. As the youngsters watched in delight, the president-elect of the United States gave his first post-election speech - to an angry goat. He might as well have been speaking to the South when he shouted: "I didn't bother you. It was the boys. Why don't you go and butt the boys. I wouldn't trouble you. — Harold Holzer

The surprise of animals ... in and out, cats and dogs and a milk goat and chickens and guinea hens, all taken for granted, as if man was intended to live on terms of friendly intercourse with the rest of creation instead of huddling in isolation on the fourteenth floor of an apartment house in a city where animals occurred behind bars in the zoo. — Elizabeth Janeway

Liver of blaspheming Jew, Gall of goat and slips of yew Slivered in the moon's eclipse, Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips, (30) Finger of birth-strangled babe Ditch-delivered by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab. Add thereto a tiger's chaudron, For the ingredients of our cauldron. — William Shakespeare

Leh has few of what Europeans regard as travelling necessaries. The brick tea which I purchased from a Lhassa trader was disgusting. I afterwards understood that blood is used in making up the blocks. The flour was gritty, and a leg of mutton turned out to be a limb of a goat of much experience. — Isabella Bird

Whereas other clubs served the eternal beefsteak and apple tart, the lavish buffet at Jenner's was constantly replenished with ever-more artful dishes... hot lobster salad, casserole of pheasant, prawns on pillowy beds of pureed celery root, quail stuffed with grapes and goat cheese and served in pools of cream sauce. And Evie's favorite- a sticky flourless almond cake topped with raspberries and a thick layer of meringue. — Lisa Kleypas

A close family member once offered his opinion that I exhibit the phone manners of a goat, then promptly withdrew the charge - out of fairness to goats. — Jeffrey Kluger

I once took a city with five men and a lame goat. — Ilona Andrews

clinging to modesty in the age of the Others is like sacrificing a goat to make it rain. — Rick Yancey

To ask a child to feel sympathy for the poor is harder than getting him to feel sympathy for a chicken or a goat - at least you can see a goat being slaughtered. — Karan Mahajan

Matheus pondered which deity he'd annoyed in a previous life. Maybe if he figured out which sacrifices he'd skipped, he could make amends. Did they sell goats at the farmer's market? Matheus wrinkled his nose. He didn't want to leave the city, not to mention the issue of travelling with a goat. People frowned on sticking farm animals in the trunk. What if he got a rack of lamp and chanted over that? Sheep were kind of like goats. — Amy Fecteau

I always thought it was a goat that kicked me over the fence. My mama told me the other day it was a cow. Now I'm sort of scared of both. — Kelsea Ballerini

Its better to live a goat than 100 sheep. — Madonna

Better a live goat than a dead fool. — Vanessa Read

IQ's are a combination of eyes, and queues. Would you wait in line to see my goat show? Of course you wouldn't, because the line is invisible. — Will Advise

As we continue toward the fifth secret technique of psychics, I have a gut feeling that you are the sort of person that lets your heart rule your head, can sometimes be too impulsive for your own good, and have recently come into contact with a goat. Rest assured you are not the only one. — Richard Wiseman

An older, inebriated Scot who looked like he'd been sitting on his barstool all day looked me up and down, then smelled the air. "Heh, neebr, goat a deid an'mal in yer bac'pac, or iz it ye tha' bloody stinks?"
My brain took a moment to translate. "Actually, yes, there is a dead animal in my backpack, but I probably stink, too. — Steve Alten

Go to the Black Sea, meet new people, see beautiful places, get killed by a mutant carnivorous kangaroo goat. One item off my bucket list. — Ilona Andrews

Some are able and humane men and some are low-grade individuals with the morals of a goat, the artistic integrity of a slot machine, and the manners of a floorwalker with delusions of grandeur. — Raymond Chandler

think of Halley - the first time we met, on the first day of Basic, bunkmates by the luck of the alphabet - and I feel a profound gratitude for the interrupted, hectic, and strange relationship we've had, intense and exciting despite all the obstacles thrown into our path by an uncaring military. I think of Mom, and about the sadness she will feel at the loss of her only child, but I'm glad that we got to spend some time together just before I shipped out on this particular goat rope. — Marko Kloos

Krystal's slow passage up the school had resembled the passage of a goat through the body of a boa constrictor, being highly visible and uncomfortable for both parties concerned. — J.K. Rowling

Dodie: "Mama, Jamie's up on the hill and he's f***g a goat!"
Mama: "Well, it's Jamie's goat, ain't it?"
-Peter Manso illustrates the brash wit pervasive in the Brando family with this exchange between Dodie Brando, Marlon's mother, and her mother in-law. — Peter Manso

Without my morning coffee I'm just like a dried up piece of roast goat. — Johann Sebastian Bach

Security has a report of an unattended fainting goat that is loose in the building as well, sir' 'A, What?' I Snap. 'A fainting goat' 'How do you know it faints?' 'Guests continue to report a dead goat. Surveillance footage shows that it's just fainting' 'What a relief' Dec says. 'Because a fainting goat is so much better than a dead one' he turns to me 'When did your suite become a petting zoo?' 'Shut up — Julia Kent

Finally, a bit of luck. Rat bastard,' I hissed down at Montmartre. 'Mangy dog of a scurvy goat.'
'That doesn't even make sense,' Isabeau murmured.
'Feels good though. Try it.'
She narrowed her eyes at the top of Montmartre's perfectly groomed hair. 'Balding donkey's ass.'
'Nice.'
'Sniveling flea-bitten rabid monkey droppings.'
'Clearly, you're a natural. — Alyxandra Harvey

It kind of sounds like the noise a goat would make if you punched it in the face. — Joe Teti

Goat cheese ... produced a bizarre eating era when sensible people insisted that this miserable cheese produced by these miserable creatures reared on miserable hardscrabble earth was actually superior to the magnificent creamy cheeses of the noblest dairy animals bred in the richest green valleys of the earth. — Russell Baker

The blood of a goat will shatter a diamond. — Aristotle.

When the head of a goat is severed from its body, the trunk struggles for some time, still showing signs of life. Similarly, though ahamkara (egotism) is slain in the perfect man, yet enough of its vitality is left to make him carry on the functions of physical life; but it is not sufficient to bind him again into the world. — Ramakrishna

Ah ken the junk gits bad press, but ah think it's barry. It's easy tae criticize something fae outside, but yuv goat tae experience eveything in life, ken? Thinkay how shitey things would huv been for eveycat if Jim Morrison hudnae droaped acid. He widnae broken oan through tae the other side n aw barry tunes wid be shiter as a result ... it aw disnae goaway on skag:it jist disnae bother ye any mair. — Irvine Welsh

The music teacher thought I sang like a goat. It was kind of devastating. A few months after that, I participated in a music contest and won. I took my little trophy to school and rubbed it in his nose. I said to him, "What do you say now?" — Shakira

Selma stood. "You can put a tuxedo on a goat, but it's still a goat."
"No, it's not," Bulahdeen said. "It's a completely different goat when you put a tuxedo on it. — Sarah Addison Allen

[S]ome score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar ought to be
as here they are
mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horse-hair warded heads against walls of words, and making a pretence of equity with serious faces ... — Charles Dickens

Living with depression is like trying to keep your balance while you dance with a goat
it is perfectly sane to prefer a partner with a better sense of balance. — Andrew Solomon

I would imagine that Bret would taste like a warm goat cheese, and Jemaine would taste like harvati with dill. Hmm ... I'm hungry actually. — Kristen Schaal

You eat a lot of goat stomach when you're in North Africa. You eat whatever's put in front of you. I am a big proponent of that. — Ronan Farrow

I once had a book on the stars but now I don't. My memory serves but not stellar, ha. So I made up constellations. I made a Bear and a Goat but maybe not where they are supposed to be, I made some for the animals that once were, the ones I know about. — Peter Heller

Well, I knew that goat would be a little gold mine," I say.
Yes, of course I was referring to that, not the lasting joy you gave your sister you love so much you took her place in the reaping," says Peeta drily. — Suzanne Collins

Wearing dark denim, he look more like one of those guys in GQ magazine than a soulless alien version of the goat-sucking chupacabra. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Scapegoating worked in practice while it still had religious powers behind it. You loaded the sins of the city on to the goat's back and drove it out, and the city was cleansed. It worked because everyone knew how to read the ritual, including the gods. Then the gods died, and all of a sudden you had to cleanse the city without divine help. Real actions were demanded instead of symbolism. The censor was born, in the Roman sense. Watchfulness became the watchword: the watchfulness of all over all. Purgation was replaced by the purge. — J.M. Coetzee

They went around the room telling stories about how they'd gotten here. No two were exactly the same, but there was always a certain family resemblance. Somebody went looking for a lost ball in an alley, or a stray goat in a drainage ditch, or fallowed an inexplicable extra cable in the high school computer room which led to a server closet that had never been there before. — Lev Grossman

The Llama is a woolly sort of fleecy hairy goat, with an indolent expression and an undulating throat; like an unsuccessful literary man. — Hilaire Belloc

Goats did have names for themselves, she well knew: there was 'goat who is my kid,' 'goat who is my mother,' 'goat who is herd leader,' and half a dozen other names not least of which was 'goat who is this goat. — Terry Pratchett

What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching towards the dungeon ceiling.
I don't know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try asking her?"
A few people laughed; Harry caught sight of Seamus's eye and Seamus winked. Snape, however, was not pleased.
Sit down," he snapped at Hermione. "For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"
There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor house for your cheek, Potter. — J.K. Rowling

Can you draw a picture on the blackboard when somebody doesn't want you to? asked the rooster promptly.
"Yes," answered Kenny," if you write them a very nice poem."
"What is an only goat?"
"A lonely goat," answered Kenny.
The rooster shut one eye and looked at Kenny.
"can you hear a horse on the roof?" he asked.
"If you know how to listen in the night," said Kenny.
"Can you fix a broken promise?"
"Yes," said Kenny,"if it only looks broken,but really isn't."
The rooster drew his head back into his feathers and whispered, "What is a very narrow escape?"
"When somebody almost stops loving you," Kenny whispered back. — Maurice Sendak

I nodded again, but I knew I would not grow up to drive a bulldozer. It would be awful to be dirty all day like these men. I didn't say it, but at best I would keep one in the backyard, like a goat. — Augusten Burroughs

You've seen a herd of goats
going down to the water.
The lame and dreamy goat
brings up the rear.
They are worried faces about that one,
but now they're laughing,
because look, as they return,
the goat is leading!
They are many different kind of knowing.
The lame goat's kind is a branch
that traces back to the roots of presence.
Learn from the lame goat,
and lead the herd back home. — Rumi

I also heard that Lord Maxwell keeps a goat in his bedchamber, but you don't see me sending someone to milk it. One mustn't let idle gossip govern one's actions. — Sabrina Jeffries

You easy-living boys had better get set, they said. There's johnnies out there thicker than fleas on a billy goat in a barnlot — Shelby Foote

A child dragging bent useless legs is crawling up the hill outside the village. Nose to the stones, goat dung, and muddy trickles, she pulls herself along like a broken cricket. We falter, ashamed of our strong step, and noticing this, she gazes up, clear-eyed, without resentment - it seems much worse that she is pretty. In Bengal, GS says stiffly, beggars will break their children's knees to achieve this pitiable effect for business purposes: this is his way of expressing his distress. But the child that lies here at our boots is not a beggar; she is merely a child, staring in curiosity at tall, white strangers. I long to give her something - a new life? - yet am afraid to tamper with such dignity. And so I smile as best I can, and say "Namas-te!" "Good morning!" How absurd! And her voice follows as we go away, a small clear smiling voice - "Namas-te!" - a Sanskrit word for greeting and parting that means, "I salute you". — Peter Matthiessen

With Michael Jackson, what I thought was really interesting was the people saying: 'He looked really well in that final video.' I was, like: 'No, he didn't - he looked like someone had melted goat's cheese over a sex doll.' — Russell Howard

What stronger denunciation of an agrarian society than the charge of bestiality? Even in modern times, when Basque peasants engage in the duel by insults known as xikito, the accusation of bestiality remains a classic attack. And though to most people, sex with a goat would seem sufficiently perverted, it was not even conceded that they had conventional goat sex. It was group sex, and the goat sometimes used an artificial phallus, with the intercourse sometimes vaginal and sometimes anal. According to some accounts, the goat would lift his tail so the women could kiss his posterior while he broke wind. The — Mark Kurlansky

What is a Bongaloo, Daddy?"
A Bongaloo, Son," said I,
Is a tall bag of cheese
Plus a Chinaman's knees
And the leg of a nanny goat's eye — Spike Milligan

Evil denotes the lack of good. Not every absence of good is an evil, for absence may be taken either in a purely negative or in aprivative sense. Mere negation does not display the character of evil, otherwise nonexistents would be evil and moreover, a thing would be evil for not possessing the goodness of something else, which would mean that man is bad for not having the strength of a lion or the speed of a wild goat. But what is evil is privation; in this sense blindness means the privation of sight. — Thomas Aquinas

The creature bleated like a wounded goat, which is kind of what its face looked like, — Hunter Shea

Miser Shen is preparing to spend the night with a goat. — Barry Hughart

But he hadn't appeared that night. Not the next morning, either. By the time she finally crossed paths with him the following afternoon, his mumbled "Merry Christmas" was the extent of their exchange.
It seemed they were back to silence.
I don't want you.
She tried to ignore the words echoing in her memory. They weren't true, she told herself. She was an expert at deceit; she knew a lie when she heard one.
Still. What else to believe, when he avoided her thus?
Although he rarely spoke to her over the next two days, Sophia frequently overheard him speaking of her. Even these remarks were the tersest of commands: "Fetch Miss Turner more water," or "See that her canopy doesn't go slack." She felt herself being tended, not unlike a goat. Fed, watered, sheltered. Perhaps she shouldn't complain. Food, water, and shelter were all welcome things.
But Sophia was not livestock, and she had other, more profound needs. Needs he seemed intent on neglecting, the infuriating man. — Tessa Dare

Outcast!" When he'd disappeared into the bushes, Juniper wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry, Percy. I didn't mean to get you involved. Leneus is still a lord of the Wild. You don't want to make an enemy of him." "No problem," I said. "I've got worse enemies than overweight satyrs." Nico walked back to us. "Good job, Percy. Judging from the trail of goat pellets, I'd say you shook him up pretty well. — Rick Riordan

Reminded of what a diet really is, I began eating more slowly, being more conscious of when I was full. I started to enjoy my buckwheat bread with goat cheese and pureed butternut-squash soup as a response to real hunger. — Kate Christensen

You cannot stick a knife in a goat and then say, "now I will remove my knife slowly - so let things be easy and clean; let there be no mess." There will always be blood. — Yaa Gyasi

The next time I open my eyes, I'm on the floor, on my back, staring at the water-stained ceiling of The Horny Goat. And . . . I think there's gum up there. What kind of demented bastard puts chewing gum on the ceiling? Has to be a health hazard. — Emma Chase

I have always wanted to open up a brewery slash goat farm. Brew some beer, make some goat cheese, but that's kinda dreamy. — Adam Lamberg

Whoever thought it was a good idea to plop a school on the side of a mountain must have been part billy goat. — Addison Moore

The coach could do a goat-hoof tap dance around Nico's head and the son of Hades wouldn't even budge. — Rick Riordan

I don't know how old I am because a goat ate the Bible that had my birth certificate in it. The goat lived to be twenty-seven. — Satchel Paige

Tom Cruise only makes one or two film appearances a year. A baseball player can be the hero or the goat one-hundred and sixty-two times a year. — Dave Winfield

Whatever the rest of the world thinks of the English gentleman, the English lady regards him apprehensively as something between God and a goat and equally formidable on both scores. — Margaret Halsey

Kessler depicts his developing intimacy with a handful of dairy goats and offers an enviable glimpse of the pastoral good life. Yet he also cautions, "Wherever the notion of paradise exists, so does the idea that it was lost. Paradise is always in the past." The title Goat Song is a literal rendering of the Greek word traghoudhia, tragedy. Reading it, I was reminded of Leo Marx's analysis of Thoreau's Walden. In The Machine in the Garden, Marx names Thoreau a tragic, if complex pastoralist. After failing to make an agrarian living raising beans for commercial trade (although his intent was always more allegorical than pecuniary), Thoreau ends Walden by replacing the pastoral idea where it originated: in literature. Paradise, Marx concludes, is not ultimately to be found at Walden Pond; it is to be found in the pages of Walden. — Heather Paxson

The goat gave a high, questioning bleat. It was staked out in the middle of the boneyard. It was a brown-and-white-spotted goat with those strange yellow eyes they sometimes have. It had floppy white ears and seemed to like having the tope of its head scratched. Larry had petted it in the Jeep on the drive over. Always a bad idea. Never get friendly with the sacrifices. Makes it hard to kill them.
I had not petted the goat. I knew better. This was Larry's first goat. He'd learn. Hard or easy, he'd learn. There were two more goats at the bottom of the hill. One of them was even smaller and cuter than this one. — Laurell K. Hamilton

He's a great mysterious Bodhisattva I think maybe a reincarnation of Asagna the great Mahayana scholar of the old centuries." "And who am I?" "I dunno, maybe you're Goat. — Jack Kerouac

I'll read a recipe but then decide, 'Well, it's sort of like this, then.' Or I'll go to the fridge and think, 'I'll see what I can put together,' and I'll combine beetroot and sausage and prawns with goat's cheese sprinkled on top and think, 'I like that they're all slightly pink. It looks fine and ... actually, it is fine.' — Tamsin Greig

It's hotter in here than a goat's ass in a pepper patch. — Zoe Forward

When lions fight over a goat, it's usually the hyena that gets away with the prize. — Ashwin Sanghi

No matter what anybody says to you, don't you let 'em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change — Harper Lee

The Shepherd laughed too. "I love doing preposterous things," he replied. "Why, I don't know anything more exhilarating and delightful than turning weakness into strength, and fear into faith, and that which has been marred into perfection. If there is one thing more than mother which I should enjoy doing at this moment it is turning a jellyfish into a mountain goat. That is my special work," he added with the light of a great joy in his face. "Transforming things - to take Much-Afraid, for instance, and to transform her into - " He broke off and then went on laughingly. "Well, we shall see later on what she finds herself transformed into. — Hannah Hurnard

My misfortune is that I still resemble a man too much. I should liked to be wholly a beast like that goat. - Quasimodo — Victor Hugo

I was gazing at a cup of cocoa on my night table.
As I focused on the thick brown skin that had formed upon its surface like ice on a muddy pond something at the root of my tongue leapt like a little goat and my stomach turned over. There are not many things that I despise but chiefest among them is skin on milk. I loathe it with a passion.
Not even the thought of the marvelous chemical change that forms the stuff - the milk's proteins churned and ripped apart by the heat of boiling then reassembling themselves as they cool into a jellied skin - was enough to console me. I would rather eat a cobweb. — Alan Bradley

Elk have not been seen in Switzerland for many a year. In the interests of scientific accuracy, please strike the idea of elk from your mind. If you must, think of ibexes instead, a fierce and agile type of goat with great spiraling horns. Marmots will also do in a pinch, but under no circumstances should you think of elk. No. Elk. The elkless among you may now proceed. — Maryrose Wood

People here will date goats. But no one wants to date a goat wearing Google glass. — Kara Swisher

There was this billy goat at a movie studio who found and ate a can of film. When a nanny asked him how he liked it, he said, "It was all right but I liked the book better." — Johnny Carson

And, pointing a trembling finger at Bonetti-Alderighi, with an expression of indignation and a quasi-castrato voice, he launched into the climax:
Ah, so you, Mr. Commissioner, actually believed such a groundless accusation? Ah, I feel so insulted and humiliated! You're accusing me of an act - no, indeed, a crime that, if true, would warrant a severe punishment! As if I were a common idiot or gambler! That journalist must be possessed to think of such a thing!
End of climax. The inspector inwardly congratulated himself. He had managed to utter a statement using only titles of novels by Dostoyevsky. Had the comissioner noticed? Of course not! The man was ignorant as a goat! — Andrea Camilleri

In a matter of a moment the amount of sand in the upper part of the hour-glass had dwindled dramatically, the tiny grains were rushing through the opening, each grain more eager to leave then the last, time is just like people, sometimes it's all it can do to drag itself along, but at others, it runs like a deer and leaps like a young goat, which, when you think about it, is not saying much, since the cheetah is the fastest of all the animals, and yet it has never occurred to anyone to say of another person He runs and jumps like a cheetah, perhaps because that first comparison comes from the magical late middle ages, when gentlemen went deer-hunting and no one had ever seen a cheetah running or even heard of its existence. Languages are conservative, they always carry their archives with them and hate having to be updated. — Jose Saramago

That the Beast was a person, Bryony did not even question, but then, she believed on some level that Fumblefoot was a person, and Blackie the goat, and the neighbor's large and grumpy tomcat. It was not that she was sentimental about animals. Chickens, for example, were not people. You looked into a chicken's eyes and you saw the back of their skulls. — T. Kingfisher

Of course, it made no sense. The goat couldn't object or agree. The goat couldn't forgive. The goat didn't even know what was happening. Only humans could accept responsibility, and only humans could take on a debt. Only humans could stand in for one another...A goat would always be a goat, but humans can change how they define one another and how they define themselves. That was civilization. — Alex London

Low branches, dead and snapping against us. On the lookout for rattlesnakes. But the path was short enough, and soon we were on a kind of terrace. Old lawn overgrown by grass and weed, old concrete cracked in discrete chunks, vast areas overrun. An enchanted place for me, and only for me, because I was too young to remember, and so in my mind this place could become more. — David Vann

First, I spit out a mouthful of dirt. Then, I screamed at the sky. "That's it! I've had it! Everything is trying to kill me! All I did was make one stupid wish. Aladdin made three. I'm the hero of this story, so where's my happy ending, already? It's not fair."

Rexi bent over, trying to catch her breath. "You know what's not fair? Spending Muse Day as a toad just because the kitchen ran out of frog legs. Or being volunteered for this little journey. So build a bridge, then make like a billy goat and get over it already because no one is listening. — Betsy Schow

In the general fiction section Ava discovered a well-thumbed edition of the latest bestseller. One million copies sold! Pah again! She cracked the book open at the spine, knew just where the join was weakest. She laid it open like a sacrificial goat on the carped, hidden between the shelves of books. Then she unleashed her machete, samurai-warrior style, and raising it above her head brought it down, and cleaved the book in twain, splitting it down the middle like a coconut. And that was when, seeing the scimitar rise again, the librarian screamed. — Mark O'Flynn