How does your cat respond to being picked up?

My cat's so spoiled that he loves any interaction with me and if I'm standing up, he will then come over to me, list his paws on my leg and meow at me. I've had plenty of cats that really hated it though, it guess it's just another one of those personality differences in animals. I had one cat that you had to be careful because he would actually scratch and bite when you picked him up for anything and in any way, but he was quite a feral cat and he only liked me. We found him as a stray kitten and he ended up always looking like a wild cat. He had some huge paws too.. them claws were deadly.