“It’s done now, Tony said. We can’t change what’s already been decided.Can’t we? I wondered. Even just a little? Can we not will ourselves to achieve the impossible? Can we not use the power of our life force to change something: one small thing, one insignificant moment, one breathe, one gesture? Is there nothing we can do to change what is around us?”

“For many people, the love or the loss of an animal often becomes a gateway into a deeper spiritual journey. The most pragmatic of men will begin to question the fundamental nature of being when he is visited by an apparition of his deceased cat or dog companion.”

“Heald envied and admired a dog’s existence, and it only weighed on him more when he considered the rare and undeniably questionable gift of knowing that he would die— that he was mortal. A dog could only embrace love absolutely, without hesitation, and could devote itself to it with complete and unabashed abandon, for the world was forever.”

“You know, your grandmother once told me something that the Native Americans say about dogs with different-colored eyes: they are extraordinary, for they have the ability to look upon both heaven and hell.”