James Thurber Dog Quotations

I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance - a sharp, vindictive glance.

The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals

The dog has seldom been successful in pulling man up to its level of sagacity, but man has frequently dragged the dog down to his.

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.

I have always thought of a dog lover as a dog that was in love with another dog

I never had a dog that showed a human fear of death. Death, to a dog, is the final unavoidable compulsion, the least ineluctable scent on a fearsome trail, but they like to face it alone, going out into the woods, among the leaves, if there are any leaves when their time comes, enduring without sentimental human distraction the Last Loneliness, which they are wise enough to know cannot be shared by anyone.

Man is troubled by what might be called the Dog Wish, a strange and involved compulsion to be as happy and carefree as a dog

Dogs are obsessed with being happy.

He had as much fun in the water as any person I have known. You didn't have to throw a stick in the water to get him to go in. Of course, he would bring back a stick to you if you did throw one in. He would even have brought back a piano if you had thrown one in.

If you are a police dog, where's your badge?

It did not take Man long-probably not more than a hundred centuries-to discover that all the animals except the dog were impossible around the house. One has but to spend a few days with an aardvark or llama, command a water buffalo to sit up and beg or try to housebreak a moose, to perceive how wisely Man set about his process of elimination and selection.

Muggs was always sorry, Mother said, when he bit someone, but we could never understand how she figured this out. He didn't act sorry.

A wet dog is lovingest.

I myself have known some profoundly thoughtful dogs.