“The old woman had an old dog, but he hardly counted any more. He was so old that he looked like a stuffed dog. Once I took him for a walk down to the store. It was just like taking a stuffed dog for a walk. I tied him up to a stuffed fire hydrant and he pissed on it, but it was only stuffed piss.”

“I tucked him in with his stuffed-animal pet dog—cleverly named Dog-Dog, by the way.”

“Here's a taxidermist's," Bill said. "Want to buy anything? Nice stuffed dog?" "Come on," I said. "You're pie-eyed.""Pretty nice stuffed dogs," Bill said. "Certainly brighten up your flat.""Come on." "Just one stuffed dog. I can take 'em or leave 'em alone. But listen, Jake. Just one stuffed dog.""Come on.""Mean everything in the world to you after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money. They give you a stuffed dog.""We'll get one on the way back.""All right. Have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault.”

“He is my dog, Toto," answered Dorothy."Is he made of tin, or stuffed?" asked the Lion."Neither. He's a-- a-- a meat dog," said the girl.”

“She dug around in her bag, found what she was looking for, and brought the little stuffed dog back to bed with her. Childish, yeah. She didn't care. He was soft and cuddly-unlike Jones-and she had a need for soft and cuddly right now. She'd like to meet a woman who could breeze through a shotgun blast and not need something to hold on to. Even if it was just an old stuffed pup.(...)She swallowed hard,then caught her breath when he opened his eyes, turned his head on the pillow toward her. He searched her face in the dark."Come here," he whispered.When she hesitated, he reached for her. "The dog can come, too.”

“Once upon a time there was a dwarf knight who only had fifty words to live in and they were so fleeting that he only had time to put on a suit of armor and ride swiftly on a black horse into a very well-lit woods where he vanished forever.”

“Like some kind of strange vacuum cleaner I tried to console him. I recited the same old litanies that you say to people when you try to help their broken hearts, but words can't help at all.It's just the sound of another human voice that makes the only difference. There's nothing you're ever going to say that's going to make anybody happy when they're feeling shitty about losing somebody that they love.”