It seems that half the point of being in Miami Beach - particularly the northern end of South Beach - is to be observed by people-watchers like me, and the display along Ocean Drive during my visit was, as always, sublime.

The fact that dogs are not people means you don't have as much response to the particulars.

The lesson we have yet to learn from dogs, that could sustain us, is that having no apprehension of the past or future is not limiting but liberating.

Dog parks are more cliquish than any other human gathering with the possible exception of seventh grade. Deal with it.

I didn't want to talk, and I didn't think dogs could solve my problems. But they were so uncritical and un-judgmental. Sometimes when you're really blue, you don't want to talk, but you want that sense of companionship. I certainly enjoy that with my beasts.

When you're researching you're learning. When you're writing, you're teaching.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.