Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Quotes

“If Jesus ever comes back to earth again, I’m thinking, he’ll come as a dog, because there isn’t anything as humble or patient or loving or loyal as the dog I have in my arms right now

“A lie. That’s a flat-out lie. Funny how one lie leads to another and before you know it, your whole life can be a lie.”

“When I thought on all the things I’d done with my own dad and how Judd could only remember hunting. Well, that was pitiful for a lifetime.”

″ I wrap my arms around him, pat him, run my hands over his ears, even kiss his nose. I tell him about a million times I love him as much as I love my ma.”

“You get a dog on your mind, it seems to fill up the whole space. Everything you do reminds you of that dog.”

″‘I’m sorry, Shiloh,’ I whisper, over and over, both hands on him so’s he won’t try to get up. The blood’s just pouring from a rip in his ear.”

″‘Jesus,’ I whisper finally, ‘which do you want me to do? Be one hundred percent honest and carry that dog back to Judd so that one of your creatures can be kicked and starved all over again, or keep him here and fatten him up to glorify your creation?‘”

″‘You would have thought more of me if I’d let that dog wander around till Judd found it again, kick the daylights out of ‘im?’ I ask. ‘I want you to do what’s right.’ ‘What’s right?’ For once in my eleven years, I think I have my dad stumped.”

″... nothing is as simple as you guess-not right or wrong, not Judd Travers, not even me or this dog I got here.”

“I told Ma once the Howards had a room just for company, a room just for books, and a room just for plants, and she said that was three rooms too many. First time I ever saw any envy in my ma.”