Hind Legs Quotes & Sayings

The mouse is a fair treat but this one would talk the hind legs off a donkey. — C.S. Lewis

Feeling her strength return right along with her annoyance, Dagmar stepped back and raised her foot, slamming it down on the tip.
"Ow! Evil barbarian viper!" He rose on his hind legs, his front claws grasping his tail. "You are aware this is attached to me?"
"Yes. That's how I knew it was taking liberties! — G.A. Aiken

It makes me so happy. To be at the beginning again, knowing almost nothing ... A door like this has cracked open five or six times since we got up on our hind legs. It's the best possible time of being alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong. — Tom Stoppard

Papa, ain't it a caution that we can only eat two legs off a frog, 'stead of four."
And he said: "Rob, here's what you do. You catch a real big bullfrog and make friends with him. And teach him to jump backwards. That'll make his front legs big as the hind. — Robert Newton Peck

On the fifth night of this solitude, she falls asleep with a candle burning and dreams herself a mermaid with a thick and golden tail, a crown of shimmering conch shells, then awakens with a start. Whether the ship hit something or something hit the ship, another change has come. The ship is dying; she can feel it slipping away. She waits beneath the blanket for icy water to greet her. But instead of the sea, it's a bear that opens the door.

A great white bear up on its hind legs steps across the threshold.

'Good morning,' he says, and reaches out a paw. — Danielle Dutton

Make a lap. Near the fire. The assertive little voice rang in my mind. I looked down at him and he looked up at me. For an instant, our gazes brushed, then we both looked aside in instinctive courtesy. But he had already seen the ruins of my soul. He rubbed his cheek against my leg. Hold the cat. You'll feel better. I don't think so. He rubbed against my leg insistently. Hold the cat. I don't want to hold the cat. He reared up suddenly on his hind legs, and hooked his vicious little front claws into both flesh and leggings. Don't talk back! Pick up the cat. — Robin Hobb

Baxter bounced around like a crazed cotton puff, pouncing and running in circles. I grabbed a treat from the bowl next to the door, and he danced on his hind legs. He seemed to know that cuteness was a sure-fire antidote for a stressful day, and I couldn't help chuckling at his antics. It's hard to resist anyone who is that happy to see you. — Gail Z. Martin

If I had a Boy Scout I could make a fire by rubbing his hind legs together. — Robert A. Heinlein

A kitten is the most irresistible comedian in the world. Its wide-open eyes gleam with wonder and mirth. It darts madly at nothing at all, and then, as though suddenly checked in the pursuit, prances sideways on its hind legs with ridiculous agility and zeal. — Agnes Repplier

At Madame's suggestion, they lie down in the weeds, and Marie-Laure listens to honeybees mine the flowers and tries to imagine their journeys as Etienne described them: each worker following a rivulet of odor, looking for ultraviolet patterns in the flowers, filling baskets on her hind legs with pollen grains, then navigating, drunk and heavy, all the way home. How — Anthony Doerr

He pleaded with his eyes to remain there. The driver was perplexed. His comrades talked of how a dog could break its heart through being denied the work that killed it, and recalled instances they had known, where dogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died because they were cut out of the traces. Also, they held it a mercy, since Dave was to die anyway, that he should die in the traces, heart-easy and content. So he was harnessed in again, and proudly he pulled as of old, though more than once he cried out involuntarily from the bite of his inward hurt. Several times he fell down and was dragged in the traces, and once the sled ran upon him so that he limped thereafter in one of his hind legs. — Jack London

I heard a noise on the back patio and opened the door. The rabbit was there in a black metal cage. It was big, not some fluffy little ball of fur, but a big, ugly rabbit. It stood on its hind legs and sniffed the air.

"Yes, you smell that," I told the rabbit. "That's the smell of your enemy. Get a good whiff. We are not friends." It could probably smell the apple I still held, not me. I bit off a piece and threw it into the cage, sending it a very mixed message considering the speech I'd given. "Just keeping you on your toes."

"Who are you talking to — Kasie West

There seems to be at least one common denominator to all intelligent life: it was bipedal and bimannual. Four legs was the most practical number for any animal on any planet, and it seems that nature has nothing else to work with. When she decided to give intelligence to a species, she taught him to stand on his hind legs, freeing his forefeet to become tools of his intellect. And she usually taught him by making him use his hands to climb. As a Cophian biologist had said, Life first tries to climb a tree to get to the stars. When it fails, it comes down and invents the high-C drive. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all. — Samuel Johnson

When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away. it's best to let him run. — Abraham Lincoln

Where the legs have gone the hind legs must follow — Leo Tolstoy

I found her lying on her stomach, her hind legs stretched out straight, and her front feet folded back under her chest. She had laid her head on his grave. I saw the trail where she had dragged herself through the leaves. The way she lay there, I thought she was alive. I called her name. She made no movement. With the last ounce of strength in her body, she had dragged herself to the grave of Old Dan. — Wilson Rawls

One day, I spent a long time with Isaac drawing a tea party for dinosaurs. On a huge piece of brown packaging paper we drew allosaurs and tyrannosaurs sitting on little chairs, with hind legs politely crossed — Brooks Haxton

Within, a cheerful bustle in the bar announced the near arrival of opening time. Eight ducks crossed the road in Indian file. A cat sprang up upon the bench, stretched herself, tucked her hind legs under her and coiled her tail tightly round them as though to prevent them from accidentally working loose. A groom passed, riding a tall bay horse and leading a chestnut with a hogged mane; a spaniel followed them, running ridiculously, with one ear flopped inside-out over his foolish head. — Dorothy L. Sayers

One has but to observe a community of beavers at work in a stream to understand the loss in his sagacity, balance, co-operation, competence, and purpose which Man has suffered since he rose up on his hind legs. He began to chatter and he developed Reason, Thought, and Imagination, qualities which would get the smartest group of rabbits or orioles in the world into inextricable trouble overnight. — James Thurber

It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable characters. The tips of the wings touched the back edge of the block, the seat occupied the centre, whilst the long, curved claws of the doubled-up, crouching hind legs gripped the front edge and extended a quarter of the way down toward the bottom of the pedestal. The cephalopod head was bent forward, so that the ends of the facial feelers brushed the backs of huge fore paws which clasped the croucher's elevated knees. — H.P. Lovecraft

I love seeing teachers outside of school. It's like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs. — Janis Ian

It was starting to get impatient. A hedgehog hopping irritably on its hind legs is a tragic sight. — T. Kingfisher

The dog rose on his hind legs in front of Philip Philipovich and performed obeisance to him. — Mikhail Bulgakov

Cat. No doubled vision: it's a cat, singular. A solitary diurnal ambush hunter with good hearing and binocular vision and a predilection for biting the neck of its prey in half while disemboweling it with the scythe-like claws on its hind legs. Basically it's a velociraptor with a fur coat and an outsize sense of entitlement. Right — Charles Stross

It is part of the pholosophic dullness of our time that there are millions of rational monsters walking about on their hind legs, observing the world through pairs of flexible little lenses, periodically supplying themselves with energy by pushing organic substances through holes in their faces, who see nothing fabulous whatever about themselves. — Martin Gardner

(On literary festivals) When you go and see a band play live, you are watching it do on stage what it is meant to do. When you watch an author perform live, you are, most of the time, watching a dog walk on its hind legs. — Nicholas Lezard

This was different. It had synths droning and sending saltwater waves under my feet. It had drumbeats bursting like fireworks, rumbling the furniture out of place, and then a crazy, irregular, disharmonious, spiral crescendo of pure electric noise, like a typhoon dragging our bodies into it. It featured brass orchestras and choirs of mermaids and a piano in Iceland, all of them right there, visible, touchable, in Axton House. It shook us, fucked us, suspended us far above the reach of Help bouncing on his hind legs. It spoke of magenta sunsets and plastic patio chairs growing moss under summer storms rolling on caterpillar tracks. It sprinkled a bokeh of car lights rushing through night highways and slapped our faces like the wind at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. It pictured Niamh playing guitar, washed up naked on a beach in Fiji. — Edgar Cantero

Rory the Dead Raccoon stood up on his hind legs, his arms stretched out in glee. He looked like he was the most excited member of your surprise party, or like a Time Lord in the process of regenerating. His — Jenny Lawson

Clovensport, half German shepherd, half who-knows-what, was standing on hind legs before them. — Casey Sean Harmon

The Donald has the political players rising on their hind legs in defense of their realm. And he has hitherto shattered the totems and taboos these players enforce. Debated as never before are vexations like immigration, Islam, and, yes, the legitimacy of the Republican National Committee. — Ilana Mercer

When a doting person gets down on all fours and plays with the dog's rubber mouse, it only confuses the puppy and gives him a sense of insecurity. He gets the impression that the world is unstable and wonders whether he is supposed to walk on his hind legs and smoke cigars. — Corey Ford

These little creatures looked soft as velvet. They had bright round eyes and crinkling noses and wee paws. They popped out of holes in the ground, and stood up to look at Mary and Laura. Their hind legs folded under their haunches, their little paws folded tight to their chests, and they looked exactly like bits of dead wood sticking out of the ground. Only their bright eyes glittered. Mary — Laura Ingalls Wilder

He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a featherhat, walking on his hind legs. — Joseph Conrad

One can speculate that the tardiness and wobbliness of humanity's progress on many of the "eternal problems" of philosophy are due to the unsuitability of the human cortex for philosophical work. On this view, our most celebrated philosophers are like dogs walking on their hind legs - just barely attaining the treshold level of performance required for engaging in the activity at all. — Nick Bostrom

Each word, as someone once wrote, contains the universe.
The visible carries all the invisible on its back.
Tonight, in the unconditional, what moves in the long-limbed grasses,
what touches me
As though I didn't exist?
What is it that keeps on moving,
a tiny pillar of smoke
Erect on its hind legs,
loose in the hollow grasses?
A word I don't know yet, a little word, containing infinity,
Noiseless and unrepentant, in sift through the dry grass. — Charles Wright

And it is a profound consolation, perhaps the only one, to this haunted animal that wastes most of a long and ghostly life wandering the future and the past on its hind legs, looking for meanings, only to see in the eyes of others of its kind that it must die. — Peter Matthiessen

One was an ancient tortoiseshell cat with arthritis, who creaked around the house--but when Aunt Sibby flickered her fingers and crooned, Miminy, miminy, tall-as-a-chi-mi-ny, danced on his hind legs like a kitten. — Jane Louise Curry

The cat, covered in dust and standing on its hind legs, bowed to Margarita. Round its neck it was now wearing a made-up white bow tie on an elastic band, with a pair of ladies' mother-of-pearl binoculars hanging on a cord. It had also gilded its whiskers. — Mikhail Bulgakov

The bear, which by now was as large as the cathedral on Catherine's canal, rose on its hind legs like a dancing bear in a street market. For a moment the sun was blotted out by its size, and then it fell. As it fell, it came apart. It disintegrated. It fell like brown snow, but each flake was a person. The bear had been one hundred thousand people, and now the people came to earth, tumbling into the snowy streets of the city and picking themselves up, laughing at it all. Far from being hurt, they realised that they felt strong. But, like the bear, they felt hungry. They ran through the streets, swarming like bees, joining others who had emerged when the sun had. It was chaos. — Marcus Sedgwick

Three mongooses, playing chase, burst out of the undergrowth and came galumphing across the track. The leader stopped and the other two bounced on him. There was a crazy bundle of squealing fur, ears, noses and tails. The mongooses broke apart. All three stood up on hind legs to look at us. — Jane Wilson-Howarth

I heard a choking sound behind me. When I looked back, Cannoli was hanging from the backpack harness with her hind legs circling frantically in the air. She looked like she was riding a bike just above ground level.
"Cannoli," I yelled. I unhooked her and made sure she was breathing on her own. When I tried to get her back in the backpack, she whimpered. I talked to her soothingly yet firmly, then tried again. This time she started howling like I was hurting her.
People turned and stared as they walked by. "What are you looking at?" I said to one couple. I suddenly felt true remorse for every time I'd stared at a parent with a toddler throwing a tantrum. I made a vow to be a better aunt to Tulia's kids if I ever made it out of this parking garage. I pleaded with Cannoli one more time. — Claire Cook

We can try to kill all that is native, string it up by its hind legs for all to see, but spirit howls and wildness endures. — Terry Tempest Williams

Anger is one of those emotions that doesn't follow the letter of the law. It speaks before it thinks. It rears up on its hind legs and charges. — Lynn Coady

You know they invented wheelbarrows to teach FAA inspectors to walk on their hind legs. — Martin Caidin

To the Greeks [the Macedonians] were uncouth, semi-civilized barbarians. The Macedonians for their part despised the Greeks as effete, wishy-washy Greeklings. Both regarded the Thracians as scarcely capable of walking on their hind legs. — Nicholas Sekunda

For one brief, the great black dog reared onto its hind legs and placed its front paws on Harry's shoulders, but Mrs. Weasley shoved Harry away toward the train door hissing, For heaven's sake act more like a dog, Sirius! — J.K. Rowling

Inanimate objects are always correct and cannot, unfortunately, be reproached with anything. I have never observed a chair shift from one foot to another, or a bed rear on its hind legs. And tables, even when they are tired, will not dare to bend their knees. I suspect that objects do this from pedagogical considerations, to reprove us constantly for our instability. — Zbigniew Herbert

The crickets were rubbing their hind legs together, unrolling that endless band of sound that when combined with the sound of the sycamore trees losing their heads in the heat-thickened breeze could cause even a girl as unsentimental as Mary to feel like she'd just left something behind on the porch stoop she couldn't bear to live without. — Kathryn Davis

(Courtesy of Jeremy Johnson) Rory the Dead Raccoon stood up on his hind legs, his arms stretched out in glee. He looked like he was the most excited member of your surprise party, or like a Time Lord in the process of regenerating. — Jenny Lawson

The account in the gospel of John says three times that Jesus was angry. One of the words used is the Greek term for "furious indignation" - the word used by Aeschylus to describe war horses rearing up on their hind legs, snorting through their nostrils, and charging into battle. This was the reaction of Jesus of Nazareth when face to face with a loved one's death. The world that God created good and beautiful and whole was now broken and in ruins. In moments Jesus was going to do something, but his first response was outrage - instinctive, blazing outrage. Clearly, death was even worse in his eyes than in ours. — Os Guinness

The stallion's crest was arched, his nose was perpendicular to the floor, and his hind legs were gathered underneath him, showing off the powerfully developed muscles in his massive hindquarters. His ears cocked back toward his rider - he was concentrating. — Elizabeth Letts

She thought, He's afraid I'll make a mess of it. She was sure she had been careful to think that on the safe, private side of the silent border, but Ebon turned on her and said, Don't ever think that. About anything. You're my heart's sister, even if you are a funny shape and walk on your hind legs all the time and rattle away out loud like a donkey or a bird. I'm frightened because you're frightened, and because it's hard-it can be hard-the first time going into the Caves, and you're old for it-you can't do ssshuuwuushuu and the ssshasssha will be like ... being thrown in a cold dark lake when you can't swim and you've never seen water before. — Robin McKinley

When people generally are aware of a problem, it can be said to have entered the public consciousness. When people get on their hind legs and holler, the problem has not only entered the public consciousness
it has also become a part of the public conscience. At that point, things in our democracy begin to hum. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Coming down off the trail, I am lost in my own thoughts and unprepared when a bear chugs across the path just before it gives out on the gravel road. I am so distracted that I keep walking towards the bear. I only stop when it rears, stands on hind legs, and stares at me, sensitive nose pressed into the air, weak eyes searching. I have never been this close to a wild bear before, but I am not frightened. There is no menace in its stance; it is not even curious. The bear seems to know who or what I am. The bear is not impressed. — Louise Erdrich

Imperio!"
Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.
Everyone was laughing - everyone except Moody.
"Think it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"
The laughter died away almost instantly. — J.K. Rowling

He saw his enemies stealthily darting from rock to tree, and tree to bush, creeping through the brush, and slipping closer and closer every moment. On three sides were his hated foes and on the remaining side - the abyss. Without a moment's hesitation the intrepid Major spurred his horse at the precipice. Never shall I forget that thrilling moment. The three hundred savages were silent as they realized the Major's intention. Those in the fort watched with staring eyes. A few bounds and the noble steed reared high on his hind legs. Outlined by the clear blue sky the magnificent animal stood for one brief instant, his black mane flying in the wind, his head thrown up and his front hoofs pawing the air like Marcus Curtius' mailed steed of old, and then down with a crash, a cloud of dust, and the crackling of pine limbs. — Zane Grey

He did not feel the ground under his feet - he thrust himself into the capriole, rose high in the air-forelegs and hind legs horizontal. He soared above the ground, he head in jubilation. Conquering! — Felix Salten

The wolf stands on its hind legs, places its forelegs on the scientist's shoulders, and places its jaws around the scientist's head. This is just the wolf's way of being friendly. If you're an animal who doesn't know how to talk, a very clear signal is communicated: See my teeth? Feel them? I could hurt you, I really could. But I won't. I like you. — Carl Sagan

They told me the first mourner to come was the dog. He came uninvited, and stood up on his hind legs and rested his fore paws upon the trestle, and took a last long look at the face that was so dear to him, then went his way as silently as he had come. HE KNOWS. — Mark Twain

You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men. — Max Beerbohm

Why did humans lose their body hair? Why did they start walking on their hind legs? Why did they develop big brains? I think that the answer to all three questions is sexual selection. — Richard Dawkins

Oakheart," Crookedpaw explained. "He's my littermate." Bluepaw stretched up on her hind legs to get a better view of the tom, but could see only the reddish-brown tips of his ears. "He's great," Crookedpaw purred. "He caught a fish on his first day as an apprentice." I caught a squirrel. Bluepaw found herself competing. "He says that when he becomes leader, he'll make me deputy." How modest! "I have a sister," Bluepaw announced. She nodded toward Snowpaw, who was sitting beside Sparrowpelt, a tail-length away. "She's a brilliant hunter, too." "Maybe if they both became leader we could be deputies together," Crookedpaw mewed. Deputy? What was the point of being deputy? "I want to be the leader!" Crookedpaw looked at her in surprise, then broke into a purr. "Of course." Bluepaw — Erin Hunter

Old friend, there are people - young and old - that I like, and people that I do not like. The former are always in short supply. I am turned off by humorless fanaticism, whether it's revolutionary mumbo-jumbo by a young one, or loud lessons from scripture by and old one. We are all comical, touching, slapstick animals, walking on our hind legs, trying to make it a noble journey from womb to tomb, and the people who can't see it all that way bore hell out of me. — John D. MacDonald

I discovered a small kitten in the garden, which apparently had been abandoned by its mother. I picked it up and noticed that its hind legs were crippled in just the same way as Tsering's were when she died. I took this creature into my house and looked after it until eventually it was able to walk. Like Tsering, she was also female, but very beautiful and even more gentle. She also got along very well with the two dogs, particularly Sangye, against whose furry chest she liked to lie. — Dalai Lama XIV