John Grogan Quotes

“Our rambunctious, wired dog stood with his shoulders between Jenny’s knees, his big, blocky head resting quietly in her lap.”

“A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes.”

“A dog doesn’t care if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his.”

“Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day. It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them.”

“Kill a plant, buy a puppy. Well, of course it made perfect sense.”

“It’s just the most amazing thing to love a dog, isn’t it? It makes our relationships with people seem as boring as a bowl of oatmeal.”

“Dogs are great. Bad dogs, if you can really call them that, are perhaps the greatest of them all.”

“If you still think you’re a young pup then you are, no matter what the calendar says.”

“A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things- a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. ”

“And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty. ”

“The deal I had struck with Jenny when I agreed to come here was that we would check the pups out, ask some questions, and keep an open mind as to whether we were ready to bring home a dog ‘This is the first ad we’re answering’ I had said. ‘Let’s not make any snap decisions.’ But thirty seconds into it, I could see I had already lost the battle. There was no question that before the night was through one of these puppies would be ours.”

“In a dog’s life, some plaster would fall, some cushions would open, some rugs would shred. Like any relationship, this one has its costs. They were costs we came to accept and balance against the joy and amusement and protection and companionship he gave us.”

“Never slow down, never look back, live each day with adolescent verve and spunk and curiosity and playfulness.”

“Owning a dog always ended with this sadness because dogs just don’t live as long as people do. ”

″‘You know all that stuff we’ve always said about you? I whispered, ‘What a total pain you are? Don’t believe it. Don’t believe it for a minute, Marley.’ He needed to know that and something more, too. There was something I had never told him, that no one ever had. I wanted him to hear it before he went. ‘Marley,’ I said. ‘You are a great dog.‘”

“He taught us the are of unqualified love. How to give it, how to accept it. Where there is that, most other pieces fall into place.”

“This animal had touched our souls and taught us some of the most important lessons of our lives.”

“I could almost taste the finiteness of life and thus it’s preciousness. We take it for granted, but it is fragile, precarious, uncertain able to cease at any instant without notice. I was reminded of what should be obvious but to often is not, that each today, each hour and minute, is worth cherishing.”

“As pathetic as it sounds, Marley had become my male-bonding soul mate, my near-constant companion, my friend. He was the undisciplined, recalcitrant, nonconformist, politically incorrect free spirit I had always wanted to be, had I been brave enough, and I took vicarious joy in his unbridled verve. No matter how complicated life became, he reminded me of its simple joys. No matter how many demands were placed on me, he never let me forget that willful disobedience is sometimes worth the price. In a world full of bosses, he was his own master.”

“During our next outing, Marley surgically removed the woofer cone from the same speaker. The speaker wasn’t knocked over or in any way amiss; the paper cone was simply gone, as if someone had sliced it out with a razor blade. Eventually he got around to doing the same to the other speaker. Another time, we came home to find that our four-legged footstool was now three-legged, and there was no sign whatsoever—not a single splinter—of the missing limb.”