People want you to be ordinary. They don't like it when people are different. They don't like it when a man soars over their heads while they stand in the dirt. People hate you when you're special; it reminds them of everything that they aren't.

A dog could see your heart in your eyes, Budress told him, and dogs were drawn to our hearts.

I was digging for stuff in a used bookstore, and I came upon 'Little Sister.' I fell in love with Chandler that night. I fell right down the rabbit hole of crime fiction.

I had a big Akita, Yoshi, who was fabulous. I loved him. We lost him when he was 12, and I've never been able to replace him. Normally, most people lose a pet and get another and keep going on. But it just felt wrong to me; it felt disloyal.

I began to encounter real-life stories of dogs protecting their wounded or dying or dead handler... or dogs refusing to leave the bodies of the people they were bonded to, sitting in cemeteries for days or sometimes weeks. You find these stories endlessly.

If my vision was good enough, I'd be an astronaut.

Lucy took a single plain donut from the bag and held it for me to take a bite. Tender and light and still warm from the frying. Not too sugary.