Before you get a dog, you can't quite imagine what living with one might be like; afterward, you can't imagine living any other way.
Caroline KnappI once heard a woman who had lost her dog say that she felt as though a color were suddenly missing from her world: the dog had introduced to her field of vision some previously unavailable hue and without a dog, that color was gone. That seemed to capture the experience of loving a dog with eminent simplicity. I'd amend it only slightly and say that if we are open to what they have to give, dogs can introduce us to several colors with names like wildness, nurturance, trust and joy.
Caroline KnappI've always been drawn to solitude, felt a kind of luxurious relief in its self-generated pace and rhythms.
Caroline KnappI'm still prone to periods of isolation, still more fearful of the world out there and more averse to pleasure and risk than I'd like to be; I still direct more energy toward controlling and minimizing appetites than toward indulging them.
Caroline Knapp