“So I didn't adopt Homer because he was cute and little and sweet, or because he was helpless and needed me. I adopted him because when you think you see something so fundamentally worthwhile in someone else, you don't look for the reasons - like bad timing or a negative bank balance - that might keep it out of your life. You commit to being strong enough to build your life around it, no matter what. In doing so, you begin to become the thing you admire.”

“I'd understood that when you see something so fundamentally worthwhile in somebody else, you don't look for all the reasons that might keep it out of your life. You commit to being strong enough to build your life around it, no matter what. In doing so, you begin to become the thing you admire.”

“What happened was that I caught a glimpse of something I desperately needed to believe in at that point in my life. I wanted to believe there could be something within you that was so essential and so courageous that nothing - no boyfriend, no employer, no trauma - could tarnish or rob you of it. And if you had that kind of unbreakable core, not only would it always be yours, but even in your darkest moments others would see it in you, and help you out before the worse came to the absolute worst.”

“My philosophy when it came to pets was much like that of having children: You got what you got, and you loved them unconditionally regardless of whatever their personalities or flaws turned out to be. ”

“A friend once asked me why it was that stories about animals and their heroism...are so compelling....we love them because they're the closest thing we have to material evidence of an objective moral order--or, to put it another way, they're the closest thing we have to proof of the existence of God. They seem to prove that the things that matter to and move us the most--things like love, courage, loyalty, altruism--aren't just ideas we made up from nothing. To see them demonstrated in other animals proves they're real things, that they exist in the world independently of what humans invent and tell each other in the form of myth or fable.”

“Be careful who you tell your secrets to because when situations change... sometimes, so do people.”

“How can I be sure? Tell me something only you would know.” There went his hands to his hair again. And when that frustrated him, he did the fist thing. So far,he was very convincing. “You want trivia right now?”“Yes!” Why did he always make things so difficult? Add another check to the “He’s probably Gabe” list.“Like what?” I had to stop looking at his head. “I don’t know.What tattoo do I have on my left boob?”“I thought you said to tel you something only I would know.”