“Finally, Charlie gave up the hunt and placed (the puppy) back on the floor, dispatching fleas was not his idea of a romantic evening, unless you happened to be a twisted exterminator, he thought.”

“I’ve changed my ways a little, I cannot nowRun with you in the evenings along the shore,Except in a kind of dream, and you, if you dream a moment,You see me there.”

“Fireheart tensed, waiting for whatever had hunted down these apprentices to emerge from the trees and attack, but nothing stirred. Feeling as if his legs hardly belonged to him, he sprang down and stumbled across to Swiftpaw.The apprentice lay on his side, his legs splayed out. His black-and-white fur was torn, and his body was covered with dreadful wounds, ripped by teeth far bigger than any cat’s. His jaws still snarled and his eyes glared. He was dead, and Fireheart could see that he had died fighting.”

“When you have dogs, you witness their uncomplaining acceptance of suffering, their bright desire to make the most of life in spite of the limitations of age and disease, their calm awareness of the approaching end when their final hours come. They accept death with a grace that I hope I will one day be brave enough to muster.”

“Fireheart dashed to the warrior’s side. Cloudtail was standing stiff-legged, every hair in his pelt on end as if he were facing an enemy. His eyes were fixed on the limp heap of tabby fur huddled at his paws.”Why, Fireheart?” Cloudtail wailed. “Why her?”Fireheart knew, but rage and grief made it hard to speak. “Because Tigerstar wants the pack to get a taste of cat blood,” he rasped. The dead cat lying in front of them was Brindleface.”

“Anyone who has no need of anybody but himself is either a beast or a God.”Aristotle”

“Heaven is a place where all the dogs you’ve ever loved come to greet you.”

“I always like a dog so long as he isn’t spelled backward.”

“You know what I should do?” Hoshino asked excited. “Of course,” the cat said. “What’d I tell you? Cats know everything. Not like dogs.”

“Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal… In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh–not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.”

“. . . owning a dog always ended with this sadness because dogs just don’t live as long as people do.”

“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.”

“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.”

“It is a fool of a shepherd who culls his dogs.”