Quote from "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving.

"Tabby was a common name for house cats, and there was undeniably a feline quality to my mother - never in the sly or stealthy sense of the word, but in the word's other catlike qualities: a clean, sleek, self-possessed, strokable quality. My mother looked touchable; I was always aware of how much people wanted or needed to touch her. I'm not just talking about men, although - even at my age - I was aware of how relentlessly men moved their hands in her company. I mean that everyone liked to touch her - and depending her attitude toward the toucher, my mother's responses were feline too. She could be so chillingly indifferent that the touches would instantly stop; she was well coordinated and suprisingly quick, and like a cat, she could retreat from being touched - she could duck under or dart away from someone's hand as instinctively as the rest of us can shiver. And she could respond in that other way that cats can respond too; she could luxiuriate in being touched - she could contort her body quite shamelessly, putting more and more pressure against the toucher's hand until (I used to imagine) anyone near enough to her could hear her purr."

Excellent use of semi-colons. Irving was Kurt Vonnegut's pupil, and Vonnegut detested semi-colons.