It did not take Man long-probably not more than a hundred centuries-to discover that all the animals except the dog were impossible around the house. One has but to spend a few days with an aardvark or llama, command a water buffalo to sit up and beg or try to housebreak a moose, to perceive how wisely Man set about his process of elimination and selection.

We all have faults, and mine is being wicked.

All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.

I never had a dog that showed a human fear of death. Death, to a dog, is the final unavoidable compulsion, the least ineluctable scent on a fearsome trail, but they like to face it alone, going out into the woods, among the leaves, if there are any leaves when their time comes, enduring without sentimental human distraction the Last Loneliness, which they are wise enough to know cannot be shared by anyone.

There is something about a poet which leads us to believe that he died, in many cases, as long as 20 years before his birth.

A wet dog is lovingest.

Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.