“If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.”

“Love is being able to be yourself, with another human being who makes you want to be better than yourself.”

“Animals don’t lie. Animals don’t criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do.”

“When we have sampled much and have wandered far and have seen how fleeting and sometimes superficial a lot of the world is, our gratitude grows for the privilege of being part of something we can count on—home and family and the loyalty of loved ones. We come to know what it means to be bound together by duty, by respect, by belonging. We learn that nothing can fully take the place of the blessed relationship of family life.”

“There are lots of guys out there who write a better prose line than I do and who have a better understanding of what people are really like and what humanity is supposed to mean – hell, I know that.”

“Being burned out is a lot better than having no fire in the fist place.”