Diogenes the main character in its sequel, "Kushiel's Justice". The character Lucy Snowe in Charlotte Brontë's novel "Villette" is given the nickname Diogenes. Diogenes also features in Part Four of Elizabeth Smart's "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept". He is a figure in Seamus Heaney's "The Haw Lantern". In Christopher Moore's "", one of Jesus' apostles is a devotee of Diogenes, complete with his own pack of dogs which he refers to as his own disciples. His story opens the first chapter of Dolly Freed's 1978 book "Possum Living". The dog that Paul Dombey befriends in Charles Dickens'
Diogenes may be apocryphal. The accounts of Plutarch and Diogenes Laërtius recount that they exchanged only a few words: while Diogenes was relaxing in the morning sunlight, Alexander, thrilled to meet the famous philosopher, asked if there was any favour he might do for him. Diogenes replied, "Yes, stand out of my sunlight." Alexander then declared, "If I were not Alexander, then I should wish to be Diogenes." "If I were not Diogenes, I would still wish to be Diogenes," Diogenes replied. In another account of the conversation, Alexander found the philosopher looking attentively at a pile of human bones. Diogenes