“It is Jill's theory that in every life there is one dog.Other dogs may come and go, but there is one grande affaire. I feel that is probably right and yet it worries me, for it might mean that I am a fickle person. For I seem able to love deeply just the dog I am looking at.”

“I’ve been thinking about that ever since. Am I lucky? Am I lucky that I didn’t die? Am I lucky that, compared to the other kids here, my life doesn’t seem so bad? Maybe I am, but I have to say, I don’t feel lucky. For one thing, I’m stuck in this pit. And just because your life isn’t as awful as someone else’s, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. You can’t compare how you feel to the way other people feel. It just doesn’t work. What might look like the perfect life—or even an okay life—to you might not be so okay for the person living it.”

“My goal in life is to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am.”

“I used to fear barking dogs. I would cringe and say to myself, 'Nice doggie please don't bite me I'll just go away,' but by that night I could look at them and think, I am your worst nightmare. Come closer and I will impale you upon my stick. The more I firmly visualized it, the more the dogs believed it. Now the tables had turned. Now the dogs feared me.”

“Dogs are exceptionally intelligent creatures. My dog, for example, taught me that not only am I a cat person, but that it isn’t really a dog at all, but that it is in fact a cat.”

“I have never met any really wicked person before. I feel rather frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like every one else.”