"Questers of the truth, that’s who dogs are; seekers after the invisible scent of another being’s authentic core."
— Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

"Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made. "
— Roger Caras

"They [dogs] never talk about themselves but listen to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearance of being interested in the conversation. "
— Jerome K. Jerome

"Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace."
— Milan Kundera

"Plus je vois le homes, plus j’admire les chiens” (The more I see of men, the more I admire dogs)."
— Madame Roland

"I believe in integrity. Dogs have it. Humans are sometimes lacking it."
— Cesar Millan

"Aquiring a dog may be the only opportunity a human ever has to choose a relative."
— M. Siegel

"We who choose to surround ourselves
with lives even more temporary than our
own, live within a fragile circle;
easily and often breached.
Unable to accept its awful gaps,
we would still live no other way.
We cherish memory as the only
certain immortality, never fully
understanding the necessary plan."
— Irving Townsend

"The dog’s agenda is simple, fathomable, overt: I want. “I want to go out, come in, eat something, lie here, play with that, kiss you. There are no ulterior motives with a dog, no mind games, no second-guessing, no complicated negotiations or bargains, and no guilt trips or grudges if a request is denied."
— Caroline Knapp

"We might miss the sign or we may be unable to read the expression, but it is almost a contradiction in terms to say that a dog feels something but does not show it. What a dog feels, a dog shows, and, conversely, what a dog shows, a dog actually does feel."
— Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

"The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man's."
— Mark Twain

"Perhaps one central reason for loving dogs is that they take us away from this obsession with ourselves. When our thoughts start to go in circles, and we seem unable to break away, wondering what horrible event the future holds for us, the dog opens a window into the delight of the moment. To walk with a dog is to enter the world of the immediate. Our dog stares up into a tree, watching a squirrel~she is there and nowhere else."
— Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (Dogs Never Lie About Love : Reflections on the Emotional World of Dogs)

"Then in a great crash they threw themselves to the floor, ears flopped down, the whites of their eyes showing, looking the way only a dog can look who is totally disappointed. Indeed, they were the very pictures of disappointment."
— Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

"You may have a dog that won't sit up, roll over or even cook breakfast, not because she's too stupid to learn how but because she's too smart to bother."
— Rick Horowitz

"Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear."
— Dave Barry

" I am no theologian, and do not have the answers to these questions, and one of the reasons I enjoy the animals on the farm so much is that they don't think about their pain, or question it, they accept it and endure it, true stoics. I have never heard a donkey or cow whine (although I guess dogs do).
I told my friend this: pain, like joy, is a gift. It challenges us, tests, defines us, causes us to grow, empathize, and also, to appreciate its absence. If nothing else, it sharpens the experience of joy. The minute something happens to me that causes pain, I start wondering how I can respond to it, what I can learn from it, what it has taught me or shown me about myself. This doesn't make it hurt any less, but it puts it, for me, on a more manageable level. I don't know if there is a God, or if he causes me or anybody else to hurt, or if he could stop pain. I try to accept it and live beyond it. I think the animals have taught me that.
The Problem of Pain is that it exists, and is ubiquitous. The Challenge of Pain is how we respond to it. "
— Jon Katz

" It is difficult to see ourselves as we are. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to have good friends, lovers or others who will do us the good service of telling us the truth about ourselves. When we don't, we can so easily delude ourselves, lose a sense of truth about ourselves, and our conscience loses power and purpose. Mostly, we tell ourselves what we would like to hear. We lose our way."
— Jon Katz

"I think if I've learned anything about friendship, it's to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you. Don't walk away, don't be distracted, don't be too busy or tired, don't take them for granted. Friends are part of the glue that holds life and faith together. Powerful stuff. "
— Jon Katz

"I do not concern myself with my inability to feel such comfort amidst humans (other than with very few friends and family), but, rather, am simply thankful that at least dogs exist, and I’m humbly aware of how much less a person I’d be – how less a human – if they did not exist. "
— Rick Bass (Colter: The True Story of the Best Dog I Ever Had)

"Happiness is good health and a bad memory."
— Ingrid Bergman

"Happiness is good health and a bad memory."
— Ingrid Bergman (1917-1982).

"Happiness is good health and a bad memory."
— Ingrid Bergman (1917-1982).

"Destiny is not a matter of change, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."
— William Jennings Bryan

"We are human, and we suffer, and unlike the animals on the farm, we are self-aware, and we know that we suffer, and it doesn't hurt more or less if God caused it or could stop it, at least for me. I am definitely of the school that believes God has bigger stuff to worry about than me."
— Jon Katz

"The immature conscience is not its own master. It simply parrots the decisions of others. It does not make judgments of its own; it merely conforms to the judgments of others. That is not real freedom, and it makes true love impossible, for if we are to love truly and freely, we must be able to give something that is truly our own to another. If our heart does not belong to us, asks Merton, how can we give it to another?"
— Jon Katz

"It is difficult to see ourselves as we are. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to have good friends, lovers or others who will do us the good service of telling us the truth about ourselves. When we don't, we can so easily delude ourselves, lose a sense of truth about ourselves, and our conscience loses power and purpose. Mostly, we tell ourselves what we would like to hear. We lose our way."
— Jon Katz

"May those who love us love us.And those that don't love us,May God turn their hearts.And if He doesn't turn their hearts,May he turn their ankles,So we'll know them by their limping."
— Irish Curse

"If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life; it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth."
— Mitsugi Saotome

"Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live. "
— Anais Nin.

"Faith is the very first thing you should pack in a hope chest."
— Sarah Ban Breathnach

"Faith and love are apt to be spasmodic in the best minds. Men live the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which they never enter, and with their hands on the door-latch they die outside."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson