All the Dogs of My Life Quotes

“I WOULD LIKE, to begin with, to say that though parents, husbands, children, lovers and friends are all very well, they are not dogs. In my day and turn having been each of the above,—except that instead of husbands I was wives,—I know what I am talking about, and am well acquainted with the ups and downs, the daily ups and downs, the sometimes almost hourly ones in the thin-skinned, which seem inevitably to accompany human loves. Dogs are free from these fluctuations. Once they love, they love steadily, unchangingly, till their last breath. That is how I like to be loved. Therefore I will write of dogs.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“Alteri e distaccati, eternamente rapiti in remote, misteriose meditazioni, [i gatti] si concedono all'altrui adorazione ed è difficile che diano qualcosa in cambio. Eccetto le fusa.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All the Dogs of My Life

“Tanto per cominciare, vorrei dire che sebbene genitori, mariti, figli, amanti e mariti siano tutti una gran bella cosa, non sono cani.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All the Dogs of My Life

“On the picture it can be seen that Chunkie is feeling cheerful again. At first, when Knobbie too left him, he was greatly depressed and bewildered, and to console him for his different trials I took him, each afternoon, down to the sea, knowing that he loves bathing and digging holes in the sand; and after a few days of this treatment I observed, with pleasure, that air of Never-say-die, which I have always so much admired in him, reappearing. Chunkie certainly, whatever I may be, is resolut. He, certainly, is ready, after any set-back, to face life again as soon as possible in the proper spirit. And what is the proper spirit? Chunkie’s, I think—keeping one’s end up, and the flag of one’s tail briskly flying to the last. Wise and sensible dog; making the most of what he has, rather than worrying over what he hasn’t. And ruminating on the rocks during those afternoons by the sea, it occurred to me that it would be very shameful if I were less sensible, less wholesome, and less sturdy of refusal to go down before blows, than Chunkie. So I made another vow. THE”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“for I saw them, while I was still struggling through the bushes, looking out of the back window,—and yet drove on indifferently? Did he suppose that in all the wide world there could be forgiveness for such people? He shrugged his shoulders. “Aprés tout, madame,” he said, “cc n’est qu’un chien.” It seemed to me as I drove home, with Woosie wrapped in a cloth I had begged of the vet, at my feet—Woosie so quiet now, who had never yet been quiet, so for ever acquiescent,—it seemed to me as if I saw for the first time, in their just proportions, the cruelty and suffering which is life, and the sure release, the one real consolation, which is death. From having thought highly of being alive—for, with a few stretches of misery, I have been a fortunate and a happy person,—I began to think highly of being dead. Out of it all. Done with torment. Safe from further piteous woes. My mind, that is, during the drive, ran in directions which the comfortable would call morbid; it ran, in other words, in the direction of stark truth. And I don’t see how it could do anything else with a little dead thing, a thing so lately of my intimate acquaintance, which an hour before had been almost fiercely alive and furiously enjoying itself, lying at my feet in the awful meekness of death. Finished, Woosie was; and the manner of his ending left me with a great desire, if only it were possible, to beg his pardon, and the pardon of all poor helpless creatures, for the tragic unkindness of human beings. I”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“Oh, I have been thankful often in my life, deeply thankful, but never more deeply than when I found that man was in. Together we carried my unhappy little dog to the operating table, where, quieter by then, he lay as he was put, his eyes fixed on me to whom, strong and well, he had paid so little heed. In this last dreadful moment I was his only hope—and what a hope! Somebody who could do nothing for him except stroke his poor head and whisper, desperate for the vet to be quick and end such sufferings, “You’ll soon be better, darling—soon be better …” He”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“And while I ate muffins—things I had never been able even to look at in London, but now swallowed with complacence,—and Pincher sat in front of me watching every mouthful, just as though he hadn’t had an enormous dinner a few minutes before, and the cat, finished with Knobbie’s ears, deftly turned her over and began tidying her stomach, I did feel that my feet were set once more in the path of peace, and that all I had to do was to continue steadily along it.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“Pincher took me to London, and Knobbie brought me away. It looked as if I were beginning to be led about by dogs. My”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“They weren’t. They never have been, for me. Friends, too, though delightful, seemed, at those moments of weariness, only delightful if properly spaced, and how is one to space anybody or anything in London? Of everything there, there appeared to be too much. And I would sit despondent on the edge of the bed, and fall to remembering the roomy years in Pomerania, when only every six months did we go to, or give, a party, and the glorious times I had had in Switzerland between the visits of guests, when Coco and I were alone with mountains. From these meditations it did finally appear that I wasn’t suited to crowds,”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“and there is no getting away from it, I am made for dogs and dogs for me, because the instant I saw him I began to cheer up. Sitting”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“It seemed, however, that I had. I didn’t want any more, so I got them. And now I am glad, for if, as I had sometimes wished at that time, I could have finished with a consciousness become unbearable, if, in other words, I had then died, I would never have known a great many very beautiful and delightful things. Evidently, then, it is wise not too soon to lose patience with life, but to wait and see what it may have round its next corner. I”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“Coco?” I whispered, standing still, hardly able to believe it. “Oh—Coco?” “It is impossible to imagine,” a voice behind seemed to be saying from a great distance away, “how the dog could have reached this spot. For three days he has been immovable in his kennel.” I dropped on my knees, and took his paw in my hand. He gave the faintest wag of his tail, and tried to raise his head; but it fell back again, and he could only look at me. For an instant, for the briefest instant, we looked at each other, and while we looked his eyes glazed. “Coco—I’ve come back. Darling—I’ll never leave you any more——” I don’t know why I said these things. I knew he was dead, and that no calls, no lamentations, no love could ever reach him again. Sliding down on to the stone flags beside him, I laid my head on his and wept in an agony of bitter grief. Now indeed I was left alone in the world. Even my dog was gone.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“That was a strange thing, the death of Coco. Not that he should die, for owing to the unexpected folly of the concierge it was inevitable that he should, but his manner of doing it. Even at this distance of time, the remembrance agonises me. There”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“A good thing this was, and that we should be so care-free and irresponsible, enjoying every minute of every day; for it was the Easter of 1914, the last Easter of the old, easy world, and our last, as well as our first, Easter as children together in the little house I had built for happiness.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“How wrong they were. I wasn’t a poor little thing at all. Even as early as this, such is the relief when pressure is removed, even in the very act of waving my last goodbyes, I found it quite difficult to pull a suitably regretful face, and I know I went back into the house, the silent house, the deliciously empty house, with steps so brisk that they nearly ran. The”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“I don’t know that doom is a very nice word. It does suggest, I think, shuddering and cold sweat. There was none of that, though, about Coco’s welcome to it when it opened my front door and walked in, nor can it be fairly said that there was any of it about mine. True I had a feeling, unusual so soon after breakfast, that I was in the hands of God, but otherwise I wasn’t aware of any particular discomfort. Nor did I remember, till later, that the only other time in my life I had had this feeling was when I was dressing to go to the party in Italy at which I met my first husband. It is a sinking feeling. Perhaps husbands have never altogether agreed with me. Sitting, then,”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“I know, from the results, that this was so. More acquaintances wrote touching letters, saying how much they longed for air that was pure, how much they envied me mine, and how wretched it was to be so utterly broke that they couldn’t manage St. Moritz that year. And since, as I have already indicated, I am not able to say No when taken suddenly, nor, I find, if appeals are made to my goodnature—it is so flattering to be supposed goodnatured!—I wrote back in each case and said, Do come. Besides, I did feel that to have that roomy châlet, and all its bathrooms, in such persistently crystalline weather only for me and Coco, while people in London were being swamped by rain or strangled by fogs, was in the nature of a disgrace. Accordingly my house was never empty. On the contrary, since few went and many came, it ended by being full to overflowing, and, except that there were no bills at the end, very like an hotel. A popular resort, in fact. If I had been in Baedeker, I daresay I would have got three stars. Three stars, though, or that which they represent, are expensive, and presently I found that I was growing poor. I had started off on my career as hostess—a career”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“Out would come another star, winking at me over the white shoulder of the Rothorn. Round me stood the mountains, exquisite examples of peace— A world above man’s head, to let him see How boundless might his soul’s horizons be— and here was I, minding because guests went into their bedrooms and told each other I had five children. Well, so I had. Nothing could possibly be more true. How vast, yet of what clear transparency— and minding because they said I was forty, which I certainly would be some day, if I went on living at the rate I was doing. How it were good to abide there and be free— The fact was, I reflected, my eyes on the glittering slopes of the Weisshorn, we were all too close together, and my guests, being of one family, only made this closeness worse. The remedy—it burst upon me suddenly in a flash,—was not to waste my serenity vainly longing for the guests I had to go, but to invite yet more of them. Unrelated ones.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“I would have all couples neatly paired in years, the forties with the forties, and the twenties with the twenties. Should the forties, as sometimes happens, not care about other forties, and wish to frequent twenties, in their own interests they should be discouraged, and equally those twenties should be discouraged who, with the inexperience of their age, suppose they could be lastingly happy with forties. Fortunately”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“They snatched that from me which I still held. They vied with each other in reading poetry to me in sheltered corners. They hung on my words, and laughed appreciatively every time I opened my mouth—sometimes even before I had opened it, which is conduct that easily dries up the springs of conversation. Such young men do exist, and it is a pity, because they are so bad for the older women, who give heed to their flutings at their own peril. I daresay they would have been bad for me too if I had taken them seriously, but I wasn’t quite old enough to do that, and my sole reaction to their devotion was that I was irked. I”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“This estranged me. And I was still more estranged by what he said next; for, having inquired what the story I was then writing was about, and I having answered—reluctantly and apologetically, because down on the flat he had seemed so strictly principled,—that I was very sorry but I was afraid it was about adultery, he called out, with horrifying heartiness, “The finest sport in the world!” What sort of a guest, I asked myself, shocked, was this for a widow, the sole protector of a set of orphans, to have got herself involved in? But there was worse to come; for quite soon, instead of helping me with the uproarious children, he left off even pretending to be interested in them, and began, to my concern, to concentrate on me. In other words, he left off being just a guest, and turned into a suitor. I know”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“Well, I for one am unable to imagine how anybody who lives with an intelligent and devoted dog can ever be lonely.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“Thus does good fortune follow on the steps of the reckless. If”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“Now all persons who have spent much of their time in Germany, and certainly all born Germans, have a great fear of the law. Their one idea is not to attract its attention, to be inconspicuous, to crawl in time, as it were, under tables. Accordingly, when I saw myself within reach of its clutches, even though it was English law and presumably more mild, I began to tremble, while the children, being born Germans, trembled harder, and Elsa the maid, not only born German but of the class which can least easily defend itself, trembled hardest of anybody. Here”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“Therefore they spent such time as I was housekeeping, eating or sleeping, alone in the greenhouse, and I had to manage as best I could when, after these intervals, I went back to them, not to be knocked over by their joyful welcome. Gradually, however, things settled down. The secret of peace with puppies, I discovered—up to then I had had only ready-made dogs (except Bijou, who doesn’t count), and had everything to learn,—is to give them a great deal of exercise, and a great deal of food. They should be gorged; regularly. Then they will sleep for hours—quite long enough, I found, in Ingo and Ivo’s case, for me to deal justly with Mr. Anstruther, against whom I had been feeling rather a grudge. This, then, was the line I took; and presently a new rug was able safely to be put in the greenhouse, and while they lay on it, stupefied by well-being, lost to the world, a relaxed heap of paws and ears and tails, with two tightly-filled bellies to point the moral, I got on, once again, with Fräulein Schmidt.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“Short work was made of a cushion which was so unfortunate as to slip off my chair; and finally, leaping up in a paroxysm of high spirits to lick my distracted face, Ivo knocked the table over, and there was a most frightful mix-up on the floor of Fräulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther—a story I was just then trying to write,—and ink, and broken glass. Could Shakespeare, could Kipling, have worked under such circumstances? I remember kneeling down to rescue what still remained of Fräulein Schmidt, and seeing, staring up at me where a great splash of ink left off, the remarks she had been making, and I had been writing, when Ivo tumbled her over on to the floor. A”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“it was difficult to exercise him properly, because he was so big that even if I ran—and I was for ever running, in my zeal for his welfare,—he still, to keep up with me, needed only to walk, and if I paused for any reason, such as getting my breath or having to tie my shoelace, instantly he lay down. The”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“Quite unnecessary, either, ever to say pfui to him, for he was a most virtuous dog, protected from sin by absence of desires. What a contrast to his impassioned predecessor!”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“Just about the time I had my first baby, Cornelia had hers; but there were six of them, to my one. It might have been supposed, seeing she had six, that she would have taken six times as long to get over her confinement as I did, who had only produced one. Not at all. She was up and about and as lively as ever within a week, while I wouldn’t like to count the weeks it took me to be merely up and about, let alone as lively as ever. I don’t think I was ever quite as lively as ever again. Lively, yes; but not as ever. Cornelia had lost her fellowlarker for good and all. If she wanted to lark, which she did almost at once, she had to lark alone. I stayed at home. I hung over cradles, doting. As far as Cornelia was concerned I had gone for good, disappeared behind a steadily increasing cloud of babies.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life

“How beautiful this security seemed to me, this enchanting security of knowing oneself unnoticed and unseen! And not only was the forest empty of human beings, but our nearest neighbour on the other side, the side of open plains and rolling rye-fields, was ten miles away along almost impassable rutted tracks—the one neighbour, that is, of our own class, which was hochgeboren. Other neighbours there were, much nearer, some only two miles off and easily accessible because they lived on the high road, but they were no good to us because they were only wohlgeboren. For purposes of social intercourse, Wohlgeborens were of no use at all. If the Hochgeborens happened to meet them in a train or other public place, they were, of course, gracious, almost crushingly gracious, but they never invited them to dinner; and having myself become hochgeboren, through what seemed to be no fault of my own, I found that it was one of my duties, and an immediate and pressing one, to learn”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, All The Dogs Of My Life