Sheila Burnford Quotes

“A slender wheat-colored Siamese cat was curled on his knee, chocolate-colored front paws curved in towards one another, sapphire eyes blinking occasionally as he stared into the fire.”

“But all these human beings together are as a handful of sand upon the ocean shores, and for the most part there is silence and solitude and an uninterrupted way of life for the wild animals that abound there...”

“How extremely unloving and intolerant he had felt so often , waking in the middle of the night to the relentless shoving and pushing of his undesirable and selfish bedfellow.”

“He broke into a run, faster and faster, until the years fell away, and he hurled himself towards Peter. And as he had never run before, as though he would outdistance time, Peter was running towards his dog.”

“But the true lover of an ancient and honorable breed would have recognized the blood and bone of this elderly and rather battered body; would have known that in his prime this had been a magnificent specimen of compact sinew and muscle, bred to fight and endure; and would have loved him for his curious mixture of wicked, unyielding fighter yet devoted and docile family pet, and above all for the irrepressible air of sly merriment which beamed in his little slant eyes.”

″‘Tonight,’ he reflected wryly, ‘I’d give him the whole bed! I’d even sleep in the basket myself-if only he would come back!‘”

“Lying awake in the dark that night, unable to sleep, he thought he would have given anything to feel the heavy thud on the bed that used to announce the old dog’s arrival.”

″...he and the Hunters spent many hours patiently tracking down evidence which was sometimes so conflicting and confusing that it was useless, and sometimes so coincidental that it was difficult to believe.”

“John Longridge turned away, then, and left them, an indistinguishable tangle of boy and dog, in a world of their own making.”

“The man lay awake for a while, thinking about the days ahead and of the animals, for the sheer misery in the young dog’s eyes haunted him.”