In Order To Really Enjoy A Dog,

Summer Is When We Believe, All Of A Sudden, That If We Just Walked Out The Back Door And Kept On Going Long Enough And Far Enough We Would Reach The Rocky Mountains.

Silence Is Exhilarating At First - As Noise Is - But There Is A Sweetness To Silence Outlasting Exhilaration, Akin To The Sweetness Of Listening And The Velvet Of Sleep.

There Aren't Many Irritations To Match The Condescension Which A Woman Metes Out To A Man Who She Believes Has Loved Her Vainly For The Past Umpteen Years.

Henry David Thoreau, Who Never Earned Much Of A Living Or Sustained A Relationship With Any Woman That Wasn't Brotherly -- Who Lived Mostly Under His Parents' Roof . . . Who Advocated One Day's Work And Six Days "off" As The Weekly Round And Was Considered A Bit Of A Fool In His Hometown . . . Is Probably The American Writer Who Tells Us Best How To Live Comfortably With Our Most Constant Companion, Ourselves.

Animals Are Stylized Characters In A Kind Of Old Saga - Stylized Because Even The Most Acute Of Them Have Little Leeway As They Play Out Their Parts.