“If dogs could talk, it would take a lot of the fun out of owning one.”

“It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs — and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety.”

“If dogs talked, one of them would be president by now. Everybody likes dogs.”

“If I could take a pill to suck out my insides, shrivel me up into dried-out bones for dogs to cart away, I would do it. Right there.”

“It takes away a lot of the thrill of killing yourself when people are looking for you and you're disappointing them, because it is a lot of fun when you're out there killing yourself.”

“Only Ron's dog was watching William. He considered that it had, for a dog, a very offensive and knowing look.A couple of months ago someaone had tried to hand William the old story about there being a dog in the city that could talk. (...) The dog in front of William didn't look as if it could talk, but it DID look as if it would swear.”