Lizard Quotes & Sayings

Under the ground seep the toxins of the population that lives above. If you have to, you will eat roots and earthworms. It is always night. Candles burn in lanterns made from tin cans. When it is nighttime up above, you can crawl out, but only for a little while. You feel ashamed of your matted hair, your torn clothes, the dirt on your face. Who would want to speak to you? They are all shiny and pretty. They have parents and house with gardens. What do you have? The earth. Whole handfuls of it. The lizard people with their slit eyes and scaly skin. Your loneliness. Your longing. — Francesca Lia Block

When we were kids the coolest dinosaur in world was the brontosaurus, which means 'THUNDERLIZARD'. But it turns out brontosaurs isn't even a thing, it's just an apatosaurus which means 'deceptive lizard', which isn't nearly as cool. I don't want my gigantic lizards to bring the lies. I want them to bring the thunder. — John Green

Back off or the lizard gets it! — Ryan Stiles

Even lizard + baby can be director. — Robert Robert

It's like a lizard's foot," she said. "With a footprint that size, that deep? That would have to be one bloody large lizard. — Tessa Dare

Do as she says, you wormfaced, crawling, sand-brained piece of lizard turd! — Frank Herbert

Art and writing come from somewhere down around the lizard brain. It's a much more peculiar activity than we like to think it is. The problems arise when we try to domesticate the practice, to pretend that it's a normal human activity and that "everybody's creative." They're not. — Dave Hickey

Then maybe it's time to change that." Della sat back in her chair.
"Change what?" Kylie asked.
"Come out of the closet. You know, like ... 'I'm gay and here to stay.' You'd need a different slogan, but maybe, 'I'm a lizard and if you don't like it, I'll eat out your gizzard.'" Della chuckled. "Okay, it needs some work, but you get what I mean. — C.C. Hunter

Gargoyles sat on the battlements- lean they were and the same hideous damp grey as the stone. They looked at her with hollow eyes and rattled their silver chains. They had wings of bats or wings or birds, most of them, and licked their beaks or teeth with forked or double tongues. Two paced restlessly before their platforms; others whined or picked their claws or groomed their mangy fur or feathers or lizard skin or scales. — Meredith Ann Pierce

In my experience, you always think you know what you're doing; you always think you can explain, but you always discover, years later, that you didn't and you couldn't. This leads me to suspect that the principal function of human reason is to rationalize what your lizard brain demands of you. That's my idea. — Dave Hickey

Shoo! said Mrs. Higgler. The birds started at her, incuriously, and did not leave. One of them ducked its head down into the grass, came up again with a lizard struggling in its beak. A gulp and a shake, and the lizard was a bulge in the bird's neck. The — Neil Gaiman

Let us observe the mating rituals of the lecherous North American lounge lizard in his native habitat: The Open Bar. — Qwen Salsbury

No person has ever been completely himself, but each one strives to become so, some gropingly, others more lucidly, according to his abilities. Each one carries with him to the end traces of his birth, the slime and eggshells of a primordial world. Many a one never becomes a human being, but remains a frog, lizard, or ant. — Hermann Hesse

Every orchid or rose or lizard or snake is the work of a dedicated and skilled breeder. There are thousands of people, amateurs and professionals, who devote their lives to this business. Now imagine what will happen when the tools of genetic engineering become accessible to these people. — Freeman Dyson

Democracy is all about not electing the wrong man-eating lizard. — Douglas Adams

Whatever happens, I'm glad we ate that bleeping lizard. — Carl Hiaasen

I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter? — Ralph Waldo Emerson

BALLROOMS OF MARS"

"You gonna look fine
Be primed for dancing
You're gonna trip and glide
All on the trembling plane
Your diamond hands
Will be stacked with roses
And wind and cars
And people of the past

I'll call you thing
Just when the moon sings
And place your face in stone
Upon the hill of stars
And gripped in the arms
Of the changeless madman
We'll dance our lives away
In the Ballrooms of Mars

You talk about day
I'm talking 'bout night time
When the monsters call out
The names of men
Bob Dylan knows
And I bet Alan Freed did
There are things in night
That are better not to behold

You dance
With your lizard leather boots on
And pull the strings
That change the faces of men
You diamond browed hag
You're a gutter-gaunt gangster
John Lennon knows your name
And I've seen his — Marc Bolan

Precisely the least thing, the gentlest, lightest, the rustling of a lizard, a breath, a moment, a twinkling of the eye - little makes up the quality of the best happiness. Soft! — Friedrich Nietzsche

Here we find the moat of thieves. And just as a lizard, with a quick, slick slither, Flicks across the highway from hedge to hedge, Fleeter than a flash, in the battering dog-day weather, A fiery little monster, livid, in a rage, Black as any peppercorn, came and made a dart At the guts of the others, and leaping to engage One of the pair, it pierced him at the part Through which we first draw food; then loosed its grip And fell before him, outstretched and apart. — Dante Alighieri

Remote though your farm may be, It's something to be the lord of one green lizard-and free. — Juvenal

It's an amazing thing to watch a lizard fold a moth into its mouth, like a sword swallower who specialises in umbrellas. — Elizabeth McCracken

You want us to bargain with a lizard?"
"They're not lizards, Father. They're extraordinary creatures who were
here long before any human was crawling on this earth. They are warriors
and scholars and - "
"He has long hair like a woman," one of Sigmar's sons blathered — G.A. Aiken

Stage presence is not something I spend a whole lot of time thinking about. On the one hand, I do, because I have, like, favorite front-people and I know what's excited me to see in a band. But I can't be David Yow [Jesus Lizard frontman] and still play guitar. — J. Robbins

Sometimes I felt the bloated Toad, hideous and pampered with the poisonous vapours of the dungeon, dragging his loathsome length along my bosom: Sometimes the quick cold Lizard rouzed me leaving his slimy track upon my face, and entangling itself in the tresses of my wild and matted hair: Often have I at waking found my fingers ringed with the long worms which bred in the corrupted flesh of my Infant. — Matthew Gregory Lewis

Their conversation was checked by the reappearance of Beatrix. "Spot's gone," she reported. "He seemed quite happy to take up residence at Stony Cross Park."
Seeming relieved by her sister's return, Amelia went to her, brushed at the crumbs of soil on her sleeve, and straightened her hair bow. "Good luck to Spot. Are you ready to go back in to supper, dear?"
"No."
"Oh, everything will be fine. Just remember to look chastened while I grimace in an authoritative manner, and I'm certain they'll allow us to stay through dessert. — Lisa Kleypas

I feel akin to the Platypus. An orphan in a family. A swimmer, a recluse. Part bird, part fish, part lizard. — Trevor Dunn

Pegasus's dad was poseidon, the god of the sea, and his mom was Medusa, and evil Gorgon who had fangs and lizard skin and living snakes for hair. And you thought your family was weird. — Evan Kuhlman

I've come to think of my lizard brain as basically a version of Felix. It's totally random and makes no sense and you can't let it run your life. If we let Felix run our lives, we'd all wear superhero costumes all day long and eat nothing but ice-cream. But if you try to fight Felix, all you get is wails and screams and tantrums, and it all gets more and more stressy. So the thing is to listen to him with half an ear and nod your head and then ignore him and do what you want to do. Same with the lizard brain. — Sophie Kinsella

The people who bind themselves to systems are those who are unable to encompass the whole truth and try to catch it by the tail; a system is like the tail of truth, but truth is like a lizard; it leaves its tail in your fingers and runs away knowing full well that it will grow a new one in a twinkling. — Ivan Turgenev

He viewed us, as we passed him by,
With calm and yet with questioning eye,
But moveless still, as though the stone
Were portion of his being's own. — Edward Robeson Taylor

Wow, monitor lizards are pretty gnarly creatures. I want to go with the monitor lizard. That's just weird enough to be true. No? — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache — Chinua Achebe

O happiness! O happiness! Wilt thou perhaps sing, O my soul? Thou liest in the grass. But this is the secret, solemn hour, when no shepherd playeth his pipe.

Take care! Hot noontide sleepeth on the fields. Do not sing! Hush! The world is perfect.

Do not sing, thou prairie-bird, my soul! Do not even whisper! Lo - hush! The old noontide sleepeth, it moveth its mouth: doth it not just now drink a drop of happiness -

- An old brown drop of golden happiness, golden wine? Something whisketh over it, its happiness laugheth. Thus - laugheth a God. Hush!

"For happiness, how little sufficeth for happiness!" Thus spoke I once and thought myself wise. But it was a blasphemy: that have I now learned. Wise fools speak better.

The least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a whisk, an eye-glance - little maketh up the best happiness. Hush! — Friedrich Nietzsche

I knew one thing, this pit lizard was going to have a good time tonight! — Shey Stahl

The squire located a few common fauna - - a frog, a newt, and an amphisbaena. One of those animals may sound unfamiliar, so if you've never seen a frog, it's like a goat, but with the head of a lizard and the body of a grasshopper. The newt was a cauldron-ready cooking newt, and the amphisbaena was pretty much your run-of-the-mill amphisbaena. — Zach Weinersmith

It's a hat," said Jess.
Manx stretched. "Yes."
"A hat with - just to be clear - a lizard on it. A real, dead lizard."
"An iguana, yea. It's been stuffed."
"I can see that. Any idiot can see that, but it doesn;t address the issue."
"The issue being?"
"Manx, you're wearing a goddamn reptile! On your head! With pride! It's like you're the lovechild of Carmen Miranda and a taxidermist! — Foz Meadows

...Everything that's not asexual has two sexes, male and female. Most of the time it takes one of each to reproduce. Then there's the whiptail lizard. This is a lizard that lives way the fuck out there in the middle of the desert, and sometimes it's hard to find another lizard to mate with out there. Therefore, what the female whiptail can do is sort of make her eggs start dividing on their own. She makes daughters, clones of herself. It's called parthenogenesis. — Erin O'Riordan

In fact if you're a mother or a father, you're filled with oxytocin when you have a child. It makes you love the baby, even though they look like a lizard .You'll think it's the beautiful thing in the world. — Tony Robbins

Why would I want to take baby steps? Babies are shit at walking - think about it. To move forward I'll be taking jazzy little lizard steps. — Ruby Elliot

The sort of man who likes to spend his time watching a cage of monkeys chase one another, or a lion gnaw its tail, or a lizard catch flies, is precisely the sort of man whose mental weakness should be combated at the public expense, not fostered. — H.L. Mencken

I come in peace...Take me to your lizard. — Douglas Adams

Time - the lizard in the sunlight. It doesn't move, but its eyes are wide open. — Charles Simic

Ben: "Gorog's no assassin! She's my best friend." Mara: "She's an insect, Ben." Ben: "So? Your best friend's a lizard." Mara: "Don't be ridiculous. Aunt Leia is my best friend." Ben: "Doesn't count. She's family. Saba is a lizard." Mara: "Okay, maybe my best friend's a lizard. — Troy Denning

I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over the dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow, but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall. — Bram Stoker

I love playing 'Madame Vastra.' Although I do suffer, spending three-and-a-half hours in make-up every morning to have her lizard skin put on. I was so excited the first day when we did the make-up test, but after six hours, I was like, 'Can we finish now?' — Neve McIntosh

I am the Lizard King, I can do anything! — Jim Morrison

I am the cockroach, I am my leg, I am my hair, I am the section of brightest light on the wall plaster - I am every Hellish piece of myself - life is so pervasive in me that if they divide me in pieces like a lizard, the pieces will keep on shaking and writhing. I am the silence etched on a wall, and the most ancient butterfly flutters in and looks at me: just the same as always. From birth to death is what I call human in myself, and I shall never actually die. But this is not eternity, it is condemnation.
How opulent this silence is. It is the accumulation of centuries. It is the silence of the cockroach looking. The world looks at itself in me. Everything looks at everything, everything experiences the other; in this desert things know things. — Clarice Lispector

The rat scuttles, the big cat creeps, the monkey dashes,
The bat glides, the white crane soars, the lizard darts,
And the owl hoots
In the middle of the night. — Sandy Fussell

He picked up her gun. Pointed it at her. Pulled the trigger.
Isabet jumped like a startled lizard.
He handed the gun back to her. 'First tip. Get a new gun. As soon as a Ras Tiegan gun gets sand in it, it's useless. They don't work out here.'
Isabet's hand was trembling as she took the gun back. 'You seemed very certain of that.'
'Nyx unloaded it while we were arguing,' he said. 'If you want to keep up, you'll need to start paying attention. — Kameron Hurley

By now it's got as much in common with its origins as a humpback whale would have with the sperm cells from a therapsid lizard. Still, — Peter Watts

For happiness, how little suffices for happiness! ... the least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a wisk, an eye glance - little maketh up the best happiness. Be still.4 — Eckhart Tolle

He placed me in a straight chair against the wall, brought me an ashtray, sat at his desk with his back to the window. He was quick in movement, very still in repose. His bald scalp and watchful eyes made him resemble a lizard waiting for a fly to expose itself. — Ross Macdonald

A lizard, resting in the shade of the anthill, studied Atkinson with interest, tilting its head this way and that. Atkinson studied it in return. A small, dull brown animal, usually it would not catch Atkinson's attention, but under the circumstances it became a thing of beauty. — Martin Marais

Which is better off, a lizard basking in the sun or a philosopher? — Ursula K. Le Guin

Those gray eyes slid back to her. "Your shower big enough for two?"
"Yes, but the cats don't like to get wet. Neither does the
guinea pig. But you might have some success with the lizard."
Bad, bad move. Because both corners of his mouth were
getting in on the smile action. He moved them one at a time, first the right corner, then a slow follow from the left corner.
And then he showed his dimple. — Jamie Farrell

Emotions don't know how to stitch back the way flesh could. How do you go to a person, your wife of two decades, and tell her you want to start over again? How do you say, "Forget everything we've got together. Forget the kids and the fights and all the good times, too. I take it all back." How do you do that? It ain't a lizard's tail, those years. It ain't something you walk away from and start over. — Hugh Howey

The killer: our anxiety not only makes us miserable, but ruins the interaction. People smell it on you. They react to it. They're less likely to hire you or buy from you or have fun at your party. The very thing you are afraid of occurs, precisely because you are afraid of it, which of course makes the shenpa cycle even worse. Shenpa is caused by a conflict between the lizard brain (which wants to strike out or to flee) and the rest of our brain, which desires achievement, connection, and grace. Oscillating between the two merely makes things worse. It seems that you have two choices for ending the cycle: you can flee or you can stay. — Seth Godin

I'd heard the boys at school say you needed to run after your first drink, to get the alcohol working. It got you drunk faster. I didn't bother with that. I wish drinking Brandivo, a foul, sultana-flavoured brew. I took a painful gulp of it, and watched as a possum came gripping along the wire of a telegraph pole, not knowing the death humming along beside it. Its eyes were filmed with light as it reached the safety of wood, and then it went down face first like a lizard. — Tegan Bennett Daylight

Precisely the least, the softest, lightest, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a flash, a moment - a little makes the way of the best happiness. — Friedrich Nietzsche

My wife is a lovely leathery green, the blue-tongued lizard said;
Her eyes are as red as bulldog ants, lurking in holes in her head;
Her body is made of the speckled grass, a violet grows on her tongue,
And I could watch her for fifty years if nobody blundered along. — Douglas Stewart

I think like the species I am studying, whatever it is. If I am watching a lizard, I become the lizard. Gazing ath the water at a pike, I become the pike. — Desmond Morris

There is a lizard called the chameleon that, as you probably know, can change color instantly to blend into its surroundings. Besides being slimy and clod-blooded, Captain Sham resembled the chameleon in that he was chameleonic, a word means 'able to blend in with any situation. — Lemony Snicket

A lizard fucks a crab and nine months later a turtle pops out. It's called evolution. — Anthony Marra

What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I could live in it and on it. I saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet bilberries. I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard, that I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter here. But I was a human being, and had a human being's wants. — Charlotte Bronte

His face became a mirror, and in it I saw a monster version of myself, unleashing my anger like black magic. In front of my children, in front of my neighbors' house. If I'd really been a witch Nathan would have been a column of dust. Not even a lizard, not even a toad. Just nothing. Nothingness, — Leah Stewart

Tell me my little children, what crime has this lizard committed that it must die this evening?" There was silence. In raising my head like a joke, I tried to laugh. That was the same time I realized that grandma was dead serious with us.Pg.26 — Obehi Peter Ewanfoh

When you are in a creative or appreciative zone, you literally have no access to your inner lizard, to that fear-based, non creative, shrieking little beasty who's so afraid you're going to be a bag lady. — Martha Beck

Any seed or insect or lizard or mammal that found itself in LA had to believe that there was a chance to thrive. Living in Southern California was like waking up in a children's book titled Would Be If I Could Be. — Walter Mosley

All this is still my kingdom, a small portion of the splendid riches which God distributes to passers-by, to wanderers and to solitaries. The earth belongs to anyone who stops for a moment, gazes and goes on his way; the whole sun belongs to the naked lizard who basks in it. — Colette

Making a fantastical world real is a bit of a challenge, for sure. When you're on set and you have a green screen you're working with where you'll pretend there's a giant lizard chasing you when there's nothing there. Being shown the images of what the creatures were going to look like and then having to react to them realistically without feeling like you're a crazy person. You kind of have to go for it. In order to sell it to the audience, you can't really hold back. — Josh Hutcherson

Nothing, not even the best and noblest, can go on as it now is. Nothing, not even what is lowest and most bestial, will not be raised again if it submits to death. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. Flesh and blood cannot come to the Mountains [heaven]. Not because they are too rank, but because they are too weak. What is a Lizard compared with a stallion? Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed. — C.S. Lewis

But my subconscious mind
the part I've heard writers call the lizard brain
could and did: it told me to reach for Anne Lamott or Edith Wharton or Calvin Trillin instead. And if I've learned one thing in my decades on earth, it's this: Don't argue with your lizard brain; it knows you better than you know yourself. — Sara Nelson

I did an interview earlier and somebody asked me if I [knew I] was onto something back when I was first writing. I said, "Yeah. I always thought I was good." We're not the Beatles or Led Zeppelin or AC/DC. But Helmet always sounded like Helmet, and we sort of developed our own sound. There's a vocabulary that's kind of universal now that's very simple. My friendDavid Sims, [the bassist] in Jesus Lizard, said, "I wish I'd thought of it." When you first hear it, it's like, "Oh duh." But that's cool. — Page Hamilton

He'd folded the card into a shape that clearly resembled a lizard, with one spade as its eye. — Virna DePaul

She's well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand like a lizard on the window-pane. — John Lennon

This is about as simple as games get. There isn't even the paltriest context for what you're doing; you're not exacting revenge on limbless pigs or feeding your pet bitch-lizard. You're a ninja, fruit is flying up in front of you, and fuck fruit. Sitting around all smug on trees and in pies. — Yahtzee Croshaw

In Turkey, ancient drawings that are two thousand or more years old show djinn in half human-half reptilian forms with horns, scaly skin, lizard-like eyes, and claws for hands. This depiction is similar to the Christian description of devils and demons. It is also interesting to note that Islamic art dating from only eight hundred years ago shows the djinn as more human-like. — Rosemary Ellen Guiley

Fear may very well be a caveman fear of the predator, of the giant lizard chasing them - maybe that's what Steven Spielberg connects with so well in Lost World. — Oliver Stone

Visualize yourself confronted with the task of killing, one after the other, a cabbage, a fly, a fish, a lizard, a guinea pig, a cat, a dog, a monkey and a baby chimpanzee. In the unlikely case that you should experience no greater inhibitions in killing the chimpanzee than in destroying the cabbage or the fly, my advice to you is to commit suicide at your earliest possible convenience, because you are a weird monstrosity and a public danger. — Konrad Lorenz

The street is still shut as we step into the molten-gold atmosphere of mid-afternoon. The houses face each other across the passages like armies of an ancient Arabian battlefield ... .We narrow our eyes against the glare. Beating their wings, the birds too are leaving the trees for the mosque. The leaves hang like limp hands from the branches. We try to think of the cool blue river and, turning around, glance towards where the river wets the horizon. But the river, too, seems helpless before the insanity of the sun, lying like an exhausted lizard at the end of the street — Nadeem Aslam

He has ultimate faith in our capacity for redemption, no matter how naughty we've been. Through his legend of stealth generosity, he teaches us that if you look for a way to bring wonder to others, you'll find it. — Sal Lizard

I stood up. It was all too much. I could not even meet my own expectations, and to be asked to deal with all theirs too was suffocating. — Jeff Lindsay

Eye contact, all by itself, is enough to throw your lizard brain into a tizzy. Imagine how scary it must be to set out to do something that will get you noticed, or perhaps even criticized. — Seth Godin

The goal is to quit the tasks you're doing because you're hiding on behalf of the lizard brain and to push through the very tasks the lizard fears. Is — Seth Godin

I was associated with the Artist Placement Group in the early 1970s and David Hall, the video artist, was an Artist Placement Group artist. I was completely broke at that time, and he said to me, "Come and do some teaching" - he was head of department at Maidstone College of Art. And I went and did a couple of teaching days and practically the only person who showed up was David Cunningham [Flying Lizard's main man], with all of this finished work — David Toop

The water in music the oar forsakes. The air in music the wing forsakes. All things in move in music and write it. The mouse, lizard, and grasshopper sing together on the Turlock sands, sing with the morning stars. — John Muir

I have also noted, over the course of our friendship, that his hearing is curiously erratic. He can hear a lizard-bird scratching itself half a mile away, but occasionally seems unable to hear the politest of requests no matter how loudly I shout them at him. — Robert Asprin

Go and copulate with yon purple lizard. — Roger Zelazny

Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble. — William Shakespeare

I'd laugh, only my stupid lizard brain has disabled the laugh button for now. I'm too frozen up with tension.
I am owed so much laughter. Sometimes I hope I'm building up a stockpile of missing laughs, and when I've recovered, they'll all come exploding out in one gigantic fit that last twenty-four hours. — Sophie Kinsella

Snake eyes!" the croupier said. "Lizard dick!" Coyote shouted back.
This sent me to convulsions. — Christopher Moore

I have taxidermy pets that are very close to me. I have a little lizard with a head that comes on and off that I call Nicolas Cage because his face is long. And I have a big diamondback rattlesnake called Rufus, and I have some rats in jars and stuff. — Mackenzie Davis

I've traveled all over. I've been to all 50 states. With my dad in the Navy, I lived in the Philippines from nine to 12, and I had dog, monkey, lizard, everything. Then I was in Hawaii, and I'm spear-fishing, catching octopus with my hands. — Graham Elliot

The Hanging Man
By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.
I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.
The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard's eyelid:
A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket.
A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree.
If he were I, he would do what I did. — Sylvia Plath

From inside his room Reacher heard the lawn chair scrape across the blacktop, but he paid no attention. Just a random nighttime sound, nothing dangerous, not a shotgun jacking a round, not the hiss of a blade on a sheath, nothing for his lizard brain to worry about. And the only non-lizard possibilities were a lace-up footstep on the sidewalk outside, and a knock on the door, because the woman from the railroad seemed like a person with a lot of questions, and also some kind of expectation they should be answered. Who are you and why have you come here? — Lee Child

Physicians do not systematically prescribe placebos to their patients. Hence they have no way of comparing the effects of the drugs they prescribe to placebos. When they prescribe a treatment and it works, their natural tendency is to attribute the cure to the treatment. But there are thousands of treatments that have worked in clinical practice throughout history. Powdered stone worked. So did lizard's blood, and crocodile dung, and pig's teeth and dolphin's genitalia and frog's sperm. Patients have been given just about every ingestible - though often indigestible - substance imaginable. They have been 'purged, puked, poisoned, sweated, and shocked', and if these treatments did not kill them, they may have made them better. — Irving Kirsch

Then again, maybe you couldn't have killed me," he said, crawling out of the stairway. He moved very slowly, like a lizard who had gotten too cold.
I heard a whimper from behind one of the closed doors next to the bathroom, and sympathized. I wanted to whimper, too.
"I'm not hunting you," I told him firmly, though I stepped backward until I stood in a circle of light at the end of the hallway.
He stopped halfway out of the stairway, his eyes were filmed over like a dead man's.
"Good," he said. "If you kill Andre, I won't tell-and no one will ask."
And he was gone, withdrawing from the hallway and down the stairs so fast that I barely caught the motion, though I was staring right at him.
I walked out of his home because if I'd moved any faster, I'd have run screaming. — Patricia Briggs

We talked about how easy it was to make the mistake of anthropomorphizing animals, and projecting our own feelings and perceptions on to them, where they were inappropriate and didn't fit. We simply had no idea what it was like being an extremely large lizard, and neither for that matter did the lizard, because it was not self-conscious about being an extremely large lizard, it just got on with the business of being one. To react with revulsion to its behavior was to make the mistake of applying criteria that are only appropriate to the business of being human. — Douglas Adams

As soon as the doors were closed, Amelia went to her sister with her hands raised. At first Cam thought she intended to shake her, but instead Amelia pulled Beatrix close, her shoulders trembling. She could barely breathe for laughing.
"Bea ... you did it on purpose, didn't you? ... I couldn't believe my eyes ... that blasted lizard running along the table ... "
"I had to do something," the girl explained in a muffled voice. "Leo was behaving badly - I didn't understand what he was saying, but I saw Lord Westcliff's face - "
"Oh ... oh ... " Amelia choked with giggles. "Poor Westcliff ... one moment he's def-fending the local population from Leo's tyranny, and then Spot comes s-slithering past the bread plates ... "
"Where is Spot?" Twisting away from her sister, Beatrix approached Cam, who deposited the lizard in her outstretched palms. "Thank you, Mr. Rohan. You have very quick hands."
"So I've been told." He smiled at her. — Lisa Kleypas