Animals love and suffer, cry and laugh; their hearts rise up in anticipation and fall in despair...they feel.

Questers of the truth, that’s who dogs are; seekers after the invisible scent of another being’s authentic core.

Perhaps one central reason for loving dogs is that they take us away from this obsession with ourselves. When our thoughts start to go in circles, and we seem unable to break away, wondering what horrible event the future holds for us, the dog opens a window into the delight of the moment.

The curiosity of cats is, like their affection, of a purity and intensity rarely seen in humans. We would be jaded when faced with the fiftieth paper bag. Not so our cats.

After a lifetime of affectionate regard for dogs and many years of close observation and reflection, I have reached the conclusion that dogs feel more than I do (I am not prepared to speak for other people). They feel more, and they feel more purely and more intensely.

Hardly any animal can look as deeply disappointed as a dog to whom one says "no."

We need cats to need us. It unnerves us that they do not. However, if they do not need us, they nonetheless seem to love us.