“Because failure isn't an option if success is just a matter of more effort.”
“Dogs have important jobs, like barking when the doorbell rings, but cats have no function in a house whatsoever.”
“My purpose, my whole life, had been to love him and be with him, to make him happy. I didn’t want to cause any unhappiness now—in that way, I decided it was probably better than he wasn’t here to see this, though I missed him so much at that moment the ache of it was as bad as the strange pains in my belly.”
“The job of a good dog was ultimately to be with them, remaining by their sides no matter what course their lives might take. All I could do now was offer him comfort, the assurance that as he left this life he was not alone but rather was tended by the dog who loved him more than anything in the whole world.”
“I guess I had never bothered to consider that there might such a thing as a boy, but now that I had found one, I thought it was just about the most wonderful concept in the world. He smelled of mud and sugar and an animal I'd never scented before, and a faint meaty odor clung to his fingers, so I licked them.”
“I remembered the boy crying the day they buried Smokey in the yard, and I hoped he wouldn’t cry over my death. My purpose, my whole life, had been to love him and be with him, to make him happy.”
“Humans were capable of so many amazing things, but too often they just sat making words, not doing anything.”
“I realized that today I truly understood my purpose as Ellie: not just to Find people but to save them.”
“All I could do now was offer him comfort, the assurance that as he left this life he was not alone but rather was tended by the dog who loved him more than anything in the whole world.”
“As I sat in the sun on the wooden dock that jutted out into the pond, I knew this to be true: my name was Buddy, and I was a good dog.”
“Human motivation is unfathomable to dogs, so I wasn’t sure why the two of us were separated, but I knew that when the time came, Ethan would Find me.”
“I was a good dog. I had fulfilled my purpose. Lessons I had learned from being feral had taught me how to escape and how to hide from people when it was necessary, scavenging for food from trash containers. Being with Ethan had taught me love and had taught me my most important purpose, which was taking care of my boy. Jakob and Maya had taught me Find, Show, and, most important of all, how to save people, and it was all of these things, everything I had learned as a dog, that had led me to find Ethan and Hannah and to bring them both together.”
“For the next several minutes nothing much happened, biscuit wise.”
“This was, I decided, my purpose as a dog, to comfort the boy whenever he needed me. Sometimes”
“Humans are so much more complex than dogs, with such a broad range of feelings—though there were many times I missed the Yard, for the most part I was now living a far richer life, even though I often didn’t know what was going on.”
“turned away. It looked as though I lived in a family of dimwits. I”
“I will miss you, doodle dog," Ethan said to me.”
“I wondered briefly if cats also came back after death, then dismissed the thought because as far as I had ever been able to tell, cats do not have a purpose.”
“Sí. Este perro será el problema,” Bobby replied. Senora”
“Because failure isn’t an option if success is just a matter of more effort.”
“life was far more complicated than it had appeared to be in the Yard and that it was people who were in charge of it, not dogs.”
“Dogs are not allowed to choose where they live; my fate would be decided by people.”
“struggled to get down to play with this new friend, but Ethan held me tight.”
“I was a good dog. I had fulfilled my purpose. Lessons I had learned from being feral had taught me how to escape and how to hide from people when it was necessary, scavenging for food from trash containers. Being with Ethan had taught me love and had taught me my most important purpose, which was taking care of my boy. Jakob and Maya had taught me Find, Show, and, most important of all, how to save people, and it was all of these things, everything I had learned as a dog, that had led me to find Ethan and Hannah and to bring them both together. I understood it now, why I had lived so many times. I had to learn a lot of important skills and lessons, so that when the time came I could rescue Ethan, not from the pond but from the sinking despair of his own life. The”
“Lennon said that life’s what happens when you’re making other plans.”
“Maya was wearing a big fluffy outfit, so I knew we weren’t going to the park to play afterward, but that was okay because everyone seemed so glad at how well I’d done the trick. Mama even cried, she was so happy.”
“a dog’s job was to do what people wanted.”
“Work in me more profound and abiding repentance;
Give me the fullness of godly grief, that trembles and fears, yet ever trust and loves, which is ever powerful, and ever confident;
Grant through the tears of repentance I may see more clearly the brightness and glories of the saving cross.”
“Wow. Why don’t you start with authority? Authority of what?’’ ‘‘Magic.’’ ‘‘Really. Magic experts? Are there magic lectures? Magic bake sales? Magic bingo night?”
“Below us the country looked like a black lake. Nowhere was there a glimmer of light. Nowhere, so far as the eye could range, was there a living creature except here in this group of holy buildings. With the going down of the sun, the night wind rose and set about the business of the gods, the dusting of the corners of Earth. As it swept along the valley below, it was trapped by the mountainside and was channeled up through faults in the rock, to emerge into our upper air with a dull moaning boom, like a giant conch calling one to service. Around us there was the creaking and crackling of rocks moving and contracting now that the greater heat of the day had gone. Above us the stars were vivid in the dark night sky. The Old People used to say that Kesar’s Legions had dropped their spears on the Floor of Heaven at the call of Buddha, and the stars were but the reflections of the lights of the Heavenly Room shining through the holes.”
“Sex is . . . well, it’s so rude, isn’t it? You wouldn’t think girls would like sex. You’d think it’s too rude for them. Doing sex with a girl, it’s a bit like putting a frog down their backs or scaring them with dead mice or throwing worms at them. They’re such sensible, grown-up sorts of people. And yet apparently even the nice ones like you sticking the rudest thing you have on your whole body up the exact, rudest part of their body that they have. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me!”
“More often than not bad luck meant bad plans.”
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