quotations about dogs
Get a good dog. We have not picked up food in the kitchen in 15 years.
PAUL REISER
Good Housekeeping, June 2011
Dogs are dim creatures, do not speak to me of their good sense--have you ever heard of a team of tomcats hauling a sled across the frozen wastes?
JOHN BANVILLE
The Infinities
When the forefinger of twilight begins to smudge the clear-drawn lines of the Big City there is inaugurated an hour devoted to one of the most melancholy sights of urban life. Out from the towering flat crags and apartment peaks of the cliff dwellers of New York steals an army of beings that were once men. Even yet they go upright upon two limbs and retain human form and speech; but you will observe that they are behind animals in progress. Each of these beings follows a dog, to which he is fastened by an artificial ligament. These men are all victims to Circe. Not willingly do they become flunkeys to Fido, bell boys to bull terriers, and toddlers after Towzer. Modern Circe, instead of turning them into animals, has kindly left the difference of a six-foot leash between them. Every one of those dogmen has been either cajoled, bribed, or commanded by his own particular Circe to take the dear household pet out for an airing. By their faces and manner you can tell that the dogmen are bound in a hopeless enchantment. Never will there come even a dog-catcher Ulysses to remove the spell.
O. HENRY
"Ulysses and the Dogman"
One reason most dogs are much happier than most people is that dogs aren't affected by external circumstances the way we are. I notice that even when it's pouring rain outside, my dogs, Blue and Celeste, are still excited to go for a walk. As soon as I open the front door to look outside, they're beside me in a flash, standing expectantly, ready for an adventure. I usually wait for a break in the downpour, and then we all dash out together. The fact that the ground is soggy and there are mud puddles dotting the landscape means nothing to the dogs. While I'm gingerly picking my way around the wet spots, the dogs are joyfully splashing right through them. They aren't afraid to get their paws dirty.
MATT WEINSTEIN & LUKE BARBER
Dogs Don't Bit When a Growl Will Do
Folks are like dogs, and dogs are like folks, and a heap of 'em wants the palings between.
BILL ARP
"Bill Arp Philosophizes", Wallace's Monthly, May 1884
The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals.
JAMES THURBER
introduction, The Fireside Book of Dog Stories
It's actually not too difficult to get a dog to bring a ball back to you once you learn how. It helps to start by understanding that dogs are just trying to teach you to play their game while you're trying to teach them yours. Who ends up training whom first depends on you. Keep in mind that dogs are naturals as animal trainers, while humans aren't, so you'd better be on your toes when you start to try out "fetch" with a new dog.
PATRICIA MCCONNEL
The Other End of the Leash
The dog is the only animal that leaves his own species to take up his abode with man.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
attributed, Day's Collacon
A dog with a bone knows no friend.
DUTCH PROVERB
The dog which remembers only to bark and not to bite, and is led through the streets as a lady's pet, is only a degenerate wolf.
LIN YUTANG
My Country and My People
The meeting in the open of two dogs, strangers to each other, is one of the most painful, thrilling, and pregnant of all conceivabale encounters; it is surrounded by an atmosphere of the last canniness, presided over by a constraint for which I have no preciser name; they simply cannot pass each other, their mutual embarrassment is frightful to behold.
THOMAS MANN
"A Man and His Dog,", Stories of Three Decades
What I like about a dog it stops people getting after you, they're not going to come round in the night. But they make the place stink because I might want to stay out a few days and when I get back I might want to stay in a few days and a dog can become a tyrant to you.
CARYL CHURCHILL
A Number
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
The World According to Dave Barry
An old dog will learn no tricks.
ITALIAN PROVERB
Dogs are everything we wish we were.
BRADLEY TREVOR GREIVE & RACHAEL HALE
Why Dogs are Better than Cats
If a dog not naturally possessed of the devil will not come to you after he has looked you in the face, you ought to go home and examine your conscience.
WOODROW WILSON
The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson
Dogs are one of the luxuries of civilization: in uncivilized life they are perhaps more one of the necessities.
H. W. SHAW
attributed, Day's Collacon
To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
attributed, And I Quote
Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
ROGER A. CARAS
A Celebration of Dogs
Every boy who has a dog should also have a mother, so the dog can be fed regularly.
EVAN ESAR
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