How To Be A Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals

by Sy Montgomery

What have animals taught me about life? How to be a good creature.

Knowing someone who belongs to another species can enlarge your soul in surprising ways.

Me and Winona fr

Here was a taste of the dream I had cherished as a child: living in the wild, discovering the animals’ secrets.

It wasn’t the data on these emus I wanted, I realized. I simply wanted to be with them.

To begin to understand the life of any animal demands not only curiosity, not only skill, and not only intellect. I saw that I would also need to summon the bond I had forged with Molly. I would need to open not only my mind, but also my heart.

He was a pig—and I loved him for it, just as I had loved Molly not despite her being a dog but because she was a dog. And as I would soon learn, Christopher would also, with great generosity, accept, and perhaps forgive, that I was only human.

I’m—

A far worse mistake than misreading an animal’s emotions is to assume the animal hasn’t any emotions at all.

You never know, even when life looks hopeless, what might happen next. It could be that something wonderful is right around the corner.