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Dogs
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“And after all, they're God's creatures as much as we, and who's to say He doesn't like them a lot better?”
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“... dog lovers are a good breed themselves.”
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“I know of nothing to compare with the welcome a dog gives you when you come home.”
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“Like many other much-loved humans, they believed that they owned their dogs, instead of realizing that their dogs owned them.”
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“For though he had very little Latin beyond 'Cave canem,' he had, as a young dog, devoured Shakespeare (in a tasty leather binding).”
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“... many dogs can understand almost every word humans say, while humans seldom learn to recognize more than half a dozen barks, if that. And barks are only a small part of the dog language. A wagging tail can mean so many things. Humans know that it means a dog is pleased, but not what a dog is saying about his pleasedness. (Really, it is very clever of humans to understand a wagging tail at all, as they have no tails of their own.) ”
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“If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater ... suggest that he wear a tail.”
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“No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.”
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“Our house was always filled with dogs ... They helped make our house a kennel, it is true, but the constant patter of their filthy paws and the dreadful results of their brainless activities have warmed me throughout the years.”
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“When I hear tell of the character and the loyalty and devotion of dogs, I remain unmoved. All of my dogs have been scamps and thieves and troublemakers and I've adored them all.”
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“There are people who may enter a house and there are people who may not — that a dog soon learns. eh bien, who is the person who most persistently tries to gain admission, rattling on the door twice or three times a day — and who is never by any chance admitted? The postman. Clearly, then, an undesirable guest from the point of view of the master of the house. He is always sent about his business, but he persistently returns and tries again. Then a dog's duty is clear, to aid in driving this undesirable man away, and to bite him if possible. A most reasonable proceeding.”
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“The dog opened one eye, cocked it at me, and rolled it up before her lids closed. People should not feed moralistic animals. If they're so holy, where are their books?”
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“If a young dog strays up the aisle during church no one says anything, no one does anything, but, none the less, he soon becomes aware that something is wrong. Even so, as the distance between myself and the hearthrug diminished, did I become aware that something was very wrong indeed.”
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“Almost any dog thinks almost any human is the Great Spirit, the Primal Creator, and the Universal Force Behind the Sun and Tides. What human can resist?”
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“We've begun to long for the pitter-patter of little feet — so we bought a dog. Well, it's cheaper, and you get more feet.”
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“My little old dog: / A heart-beat at my feet.”
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“The dog lay down next to Arthur with his nose a few inches from Arthur's mouth, staring at him as if Arthur were about to speak the secrets of the past.”
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“A very laid-back dog, he hates trouble, rolling his eyes and whining when the cats quarrel among themselves. If the chips were down and we were attacked by strangers, he would do the sensible thing — run for his life.”
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“The more I see of dogs, the more I like children.”
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“Parrots, tortoises and redwoods / Live a longer life than men do, / Men a longer life than dogs do, / Dogs a longer life than love does.”
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“[On her dogs:] I have four now. My friends tell me if I get any more they'll have to hold an intervention.”
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“Dogs do all the things we want to do but won't. Dogs act exactly the way we would act if we had no shame.”
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“Dogs are us, only innocent.”
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“Dogs are forever in the moment. They are always a tidal wave of feelings, and every feeling is some variant of love.”
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“... may all dogs that I have ever loved / carry my coffin, / howl at the moonless sky, / & lie down with me sleeping / when I die.”
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“Dogs are joiners; if they were guys, their idea of a good time would be to attend an Elks luncheon ... ”
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“A puppy is but a dog, plus high spirits, and minus common sense.”
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“... there is no virtue in liking them, any more than there is virtue in liking wintry weather or stringed instruments. An affection for dogs is not, as we have been given to understand, a test of an open and generous disposition. Still less is their affection for us to be accepted as a guarantee of our integrity. The assumption that a dog knows a good from a bad human being when he sees one is unwarranted.”
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“... a real dog, beloved and therefore pampered by his mistress, is a lamentable spectacle. He suffers from fatty degeneration of his moral being.”
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“... our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.”
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“And I am simply delighted that you have a Springer spaniel. That is the perfect final touch to our friendship. Do you know there is always a barrier between me and any man or woman who does not like dogs ...”
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“... Wiggins was not one of those emotional dogs who let themselves go with quivering whiskers, hot nose, and dribbling tongue.”
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“Dogs are great teachers. They are at home in the world. They live in the moment, and they force us to stay there with them. Dogs love us unconditionally, not for our bodies or bank accounts.”
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“Fido and Rover are partaking of a mystery of which, further up the table, Cézanne and Beethoven are participants also.”
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“It had fervent sherry-colored eyes and was the very dog for a miraculous shrine, for it had such a rich capacity for emotional life that it could hardly have retained any critical sense of evidence. If the dog had a fault, it lay in giving to God's creatures too much of the feelings that it should have reserved for the Creator. It greeted the boatman, who could not have been away from it more more than half an hour, and offered us its friendship, as it might have broken an alabaster box of ointment over our feet and washed them with its hair. It had a baroque excessiveness ... I blushed a little for the dog's abandonment, and was glad that no cat was by to sneer.”
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“... the more I see / Of the Pekinee, / The more I am fond of people.”
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“C. came in yesterday to see me, carrying a baby Pekinese. Have you ever seen a really baby one about the size of a fur glove, covered with pale gold down, with paws like minute seal flappers, very large impudent eyes and ears like fried potatoes? Good God! What creatures they are. ... They are like fairy animals.”
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“Dogs are a habit, I think.”
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“I am I because my little dog knows me.”
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“Dogs are dogs, you sometimes think that they are not but they are. And they always are here there and everywhere.”
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“... she was a tempting dog, she loved to tempt other dogs to do what they should not. She never did what she should not but they did when she showed them where it was.”
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“He knew that not all dogs could be handsome or eloquent or victorious, but that every dog could love. Inside his homely hide beat the most affectionate, loyal, faithful heart of any dog since dogs were; and something looked out of his brown eyes that was nearer akin to a soul than any theologian would allow.”
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“If a person had accused him of meanness, he could have defended himself. But with a dog — you did something cheap to it when you were sure no one was looking, and it was as though you had done it in front of a mirror.”
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“Perhaps dogs had thoughts. How else to explain the way Grace would suddenly rise from where she was lying and go to another room? Something must have occurred to her.”
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“Tomorrow an ex-G.I. is calling for me in an ex-Jeep to take Basket to the vet's — he has to have something done to what if he were a chicken would go over the fence last.”
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“Never date a man who doesn't like your dog.”
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“My friend Phil has a theory that the Lord, having made teenagers, felt constrained to make amends and so created the golden retriever.”
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“All dogs seem to be great linguists, according to their owners. They always understand every word that's said to them.”
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“Who can resist those dumb beseeching eyes, / Where genuine eloquence persuasive lies? / Those eyes, where language fails, display thy heart / Beyond the pomp of phrase and pride of art.”
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“Let us love dogs; let us love only dogs! Men and cats are unworthy creatures.”
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“Got a new pup. He is half griffon. The other half is mistake.”
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“All dogs can be guide dogs of a sort, leading us to places we didn't even know we needed or wanted to go.”
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“In some ways, living with a dog is like being followed around twenty-four hours a day by a mute psychoanalyst: you get that blank screen — nonjudgmental, trusted, noncritical — but no interpretation, no words of insight or guidance, no quiet voice of reason helping you to connect the psychic dots. Feelings float up from inside — rational ones, irrational ones, ones you didn't even know you had — and attach themselves to the dog, who will not question their validity, or hold your behavior up to scrutiny, or challenge your perceptions. Freud in fur; Freud without the therapeutic agenda. In the dog's presence you are free to act — and act out — any way you want.”
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“Dogs are fantasies that don't disappoint.”
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“Dogs possess a quality that's rare among humans — the ability to make you feel valued just by being you — and it was something of a miracle to me to be on the receiving end of all that acceptance. The dog didn't care what I looked like, or what I did for a living, or what a train wreck of a life I'd led before I got her, or what we did from day to day. She just wanted to be with me, and that awareness gave me a singular sensation of delight.”
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“I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me they are the role model for being alive.”
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“... the world has been fair cruel if you've never known the love of a dog!”
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“Judging by his voice and his industry, he is something more than the summary of a diversified ancestry. He seems to be a dog of parts and distinction.”
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“For the dog is a creature that believes in order.”
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“Only my dogs will not betray me.”
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“I once undertook on behalf of a friend to smuggle a small dog through the customs. I was of ample proportions, and managed to conceal the little dog upon my person. All went well until my bosom barked.”
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“If there is no God for thee / Then there is no God for me ...”
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“No person can comfort like a dog can.”
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“Bonny isn't ordinary. She has a liquid, intellectual gaze, as if she's not a dog but a Democrat, interested, like Gabe and Len, in civil liberties.”
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“Being out in the yard makes him yearn to come in, and being inside convinces him his happiness lies in being in the yard. I have to open the patio door for him 400 times a day. When I do, he freezes for a second on the threshold, and it's plain to anybody that even he can't remember whether he's coming or going.”
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“Long as I've trod the world, I've found / Naught half so worthy as my hound ...”
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“A greyhound should be headed like a Snake, / And necked like a Drake, / Footed like a Cat, / Tailed like a Rat, / Sided like a Team, / Chined like a Beam.”
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“A dog is the only exercise machine you cannot decide to skip when you don't feel like it.”
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“There is no doubt about it. Dog loving is closely related to the pounding-yourself-on-the-head-with-a-hammer-because-it-is-so-pleasant-when-you-stop school of masochism.”
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“I'm a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog, and lone; / I'm a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own; / I'm a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep; / I love to sit and bay at the moon, to keep fat souls from sleep.”
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“We are pretty sure that we and our pets share the same reality, until one day we come home to find that our wistful, intelligent friend who reminds us of our better self has decided a good way to spend the day is to open a box of Brillo pads, unravel a few, distribute some throughout the house, and eat or wear all the rest. And we shake our heads in an inability to comprehend what went wrong here.”
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“... I sometimes look into the face of my dog Stan and see wistful sadness and existential angst, when all he is actually doing is slowly scanning the ceiling for flies.”
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“The day is divided into two important sections: Mealtimes and everything else.”
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“My near little, queer little, dear little dog, / So fearless of man, yet afraid of a frog! / The nearest and queerest and dearest of all / The race that is loving and winning and small; / The sweetest, most faithful, the truest and best / Dispenser of merriment, love and unrest!”
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“His tail ached with wagging, and even his hips waggled as he moved. But under cover of these virtues he was watchful for his benefit, watchful for human weakness, affected, a ready liar, disobedient, boastful, a sucker-up ...”
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“A dog needs God. It lives by your glances, your wishes. It even shares your humor. This happens about the fifth year. If it doesn't happen you are only keeping an animal.”
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“Ever considered what they must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul — chicken, pork, half a cow. We leave at nine and are back at ten, having caught an entire herd of beasts. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!”
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“You should see my corgis at sunset in the snow. It's their finest hour. About five o'clock they glow like coppper. Then they come in and lie in front of the fire like a string of sausages.”
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“Dogs' lives are too short. Their only fault, really.”
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“For Pastrasche was their alpha and omega; their treasury and granary; their store of gold and wand of wealth; their bread-winner and minister; their only friend and comforter. ... Pastrasche was their dog.”
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“While he has not, in my hearing, spoken the English language, he makes it perfectly plain that he understands it. And he uses his ears, tail, eyebrows, various rumbles and grumbles, the slant of his head, a nudge from his huge paw, a thrust of his great, cold nose or a succession of heartrending sighs to get his meaning across.”
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“The only food he has ever stolen has been down on a coffee table. He claims that he genuinely believed it to be a table meant for dogs.”
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“A Rottweiler is a dog — a cross between a Doberman and a Jeep.”
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“For that dog does worry. I see it in his eyes; and anybody that is sweet enough to worry with you — why, there are few people in the world one counts upon for that!”
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“We had told each other a great deal in those two looks ... A dog with whom one has such moments ceases to be a dog; he is an individual, lifted to real intimacy.”
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“Does not every one feel how true is the likeness of a happy loving dog to sunshine in a house?”
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“Happiness is a thing you have to go find for yourself, but dog hair is something that finds you.”
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“He had let out the dogs and they were jumping around him frantic with joy, as if they were afraid, every night, there would never be another letting out or another morning.”
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“I asked my vet what kind of dog he'd get. He told me, 'I'd get a Chihuahua, because when it died, I wouldn't care.'”
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“Dogs may be divided into two classes: those who are merely afraid of cattle and those who can't abide them.”
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“Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in? I think that is how dogs spend their lives.”
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“... when you are deeply troubled, there are things you get from the silent, devoted companionship of a dog that you get from no other source.”
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“I have never found in a human being loyalty that is comparable to a dog's loyalty.”
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“'Now where in the world is that poky little puppy?' they wondered.”
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“Arnold was a dog's dog. Whenever he shuffled along walks and through alleyways, he always gave the impression of being onto something big.”
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“The Seventh Annual Rutledge County Kennel Club All-Breed Dog Show was nearly over ... Nine members of the general public were nursing dog bites, because they did not believe the Do Not Touch the Dogs signs. Four bad dog fights had been broken up by exhibitors who did not believe the Keep Your Dog on a Short Leash signs. ... Mr. Osbert Snitkin, the judge in Ring Three, was two hours and forty-three minutes behind schedule. ... To sum up, the Rutledge show was perfectly normal and had faithfully followed the pattern of all dog shows to precede and to follow it.”
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“Don't make the mistake of treating your dogs like humans, or they'll treat you like dogs.”
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“Be sure to incorporate your pooch into your daily activities to make her feel like a true family member. You can do this by signing your dog's name — or her paw print — on birthday cards, by getting 'from our dog to your dog' holiday cards, or by including your dog when asked the number of family members in your household. These small, considerate actions will make you an ideal petowner.”
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“When you feel really lousy, puppy therapy is indicated.”
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“O Pug, obstinate old nervous breakdown, / In the midst of so much love, / and such comfort, / Still to feel unsafe and be afraid, / How one's heart goes out to you!”
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“A puppy of almost any breed possesses a surfeit of charm and the ability to assume those expressions of plaintive wide-eyed innocence that make the more susceptible members of the human race forgive almost anything.”
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“I do not believe that a dog can be cured by a psychiatrist, but I think some owners could be helped by one.”
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“There is no such thing as a difficult dog, only an inexperienced owner.”
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“I have caught more ills from people sneezing over me and giving me virus infections than from kissing dogs.”
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“I can train any dog in five minutes. It's training the owners that takes longer.”
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“Samoyeds are very smart and therefore very disobedient.”
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“The pup ... was a bundle of fat and fur and undecided impulses.”
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“Who thinks you're as fantastic as your dog does?”
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“Tonight's the night / The dogs dance out / And chase their tails till dawn.”
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“Dogs who chase cars evidently see them as large, unruly ungulates badly in need of discipline and shepherding ...”
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“What do dogs want? They want each other. Human beings are merely a cynomorphic substitute ...”
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“You gonna eat that? / You gonna eat that? / You gonna eat that? / I'll eat that.”
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“... I thanked God for being wise enough to withhold from dogs the gift of speech.”
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“Time to head home. I wait / until we're nearly out to the main road / to put him back on the leash, and he / — the designated optimist — / imagines to the end that he is free.”
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“If my dog were a man, he'd be hot.”
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“You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog as large as myself that my father bought me. They are better than human beings, because they know but do not tell.”
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“From the dog's point of view, his master is an elongated and abnormally cunning dog.”
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“He's a real teenager of a dog — if Boris didn't have whiskers, he'd have pimples.”