Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I am stunned by how much time and effort I must spend marketing my book and interacting with my readers. With social media, you don't just publish a book and figure you've done your part; your fans want to talk to you, have a conversation.
When I was in seventh grade, I was a scrawny boy with no muscles, so I went out for wrestling. My intention was to develop secret wrestling skills so that if I were jumped by a bully, I'd shout, 'Ha!' and he'd be on the ground in a headlock.
Back during the most dramatic and challenging time in our history, when we first came together with wolves, we had no idea that it was changing everything, but we literally evolved together. Without us there would be no dogs, and vice versa.
An ice-fishing shanty is basically a tin outhouse on a frozen lake, except that in an outhouse, the hole has a purpose. In ice fishing, the hole is what you stare at for hours, hoping that at some point you'll break the monotony by falling in.
When I was in grade school, my teachers decided I was just about the dumbest thing to come through the door in a long time. Whatever the lesson, whatever the subject, I would sit and listen to them with a lost, glassy-eyed expression on my face.
With a 3D printer, you could build your own car, one part at a time. When you were finished, you'd have an automobile that is extremely lightweight because it is made of plastic, which is good because you'd need to carry it because it is made of plastic.
With my book 'How to Remodel a Man,' I was on Oprah, Fox News, the Early Show, and Good Morning America. Oprah was the best - an hour long segment. TV is so short; you answer a few questions, and then it's over. It feels like a hit-and-run with a camera.
When we adopt a dog or any pet, we know it is going to end with us having to say goodbye, but we still do it. And we do it for a very good reason: They bring so much joy and optimism and happiness. They attack every moment of every day with that attitude.
I have never been able to pay attention to anything for more than a few minutes - the stories in my head have always been so much more entertaining. Only books could pull me out of my own imagination, and then it was only to plunge me into someone else's.
I'd hope that the story A Dog's Purpose helps everyone reflect on how many different "lives" we all live - from children to teenager to adults to seniors - and how each phase of life presents new situations along the way to discovering our ultimate purpose.
I've always thought that I'd make a pretty good police officer, except maybe for the danger part. I have a rare medical condition that makes it difficult for me to risk getting shot, so probably I'd have to be one of those officers who work in 'do not shoot' areas.
The first cellphone I owned was hardly a slim, high-tech device - it was more like a brick with buttons, only with worse reception. If you wanted to use your phone to give someone a message, you were better off throwing it at him and hoping you broke his car window.
The 'Dog's Purpose' premise has gotten me so many emails and comments from people who say that their dog is so much like one they had when they were young or years before, that it seems like the truth. The idea that you would come across an old friend later in life.
With social media, you don't just publish a book and figure you've done your part; your fans want to talk to you, have a conversation. It means, though, that you can connect with your readers like never before, so you don't have to guess what they like - you can ask.
The story of 'A Dog's Purpose' flowed into me a set piece. The entire book was just there, as if I were connected to a streaming service, a novel wholly formed of character and plot. This has never happened to me before or since. I prayed for help and I got it. A gift.
As to which is cuter, a puppy or a baby, I'm going to say that probably depends less on the particular puppy and more on the baby. I've seen pictures of me as an infant and consider myself lucky that nobody ever offered my parents the opportunity to trade me for a beagle.
3D printers give us what we've all been craving: another reason to talk to technical support. When you finally get the thing working, though, you'll be able to print out your grocery list as a cube! When you look up directions online, you can print the map out on a globe!
We have enforced a Darwinian process on wolves, turning them into the shy and elusive animals they've become. They didn't have that fear of us 30,000 years ago. We didn't have gunpowder; we had rocks. Wolves would have seen us as lunch, and we were weak and slow and tasty.
None of the kids in the neighborhood had dogs. My dad walked in that Labrador, and we started running together and rolling around together like we found each other after years apart. And then, suddenly, some of the other people in the neighborhood started getting dogs, too.
I was riding my mountain bike in Colorado, and I met a dog who reminded me so much of my very first dog in the way she interacted with me, looked at me, and wagged her tail that I rode away convinced I'd just very possibly met the reincarnated version of my long lost friend.
I was an arrogant man. I not only thought I could manage my life without help, I wanted it that way. I had best-selling books and a TV show and movie contracts; I felt invincible, secure in the thought that everything was my doing. And then, like all arrogant men, I came to stumble.
My advice to anybody, including myself, is if you're going through a bad period, and you just can't see the world's on your shoulders and no day is a good day, you're missing the whole point of the experience. And that's something dogs know from the moment they come bounding up to you as a puppy.
About the most exciting thing a baby can do is burp - I've spent hours of my life holding a baby on my shoulder and patting its back, trying to loosen up a burp. Burping was probably invented to give the father something positive to do, since our chests are not equipped to allow us to do much else.
My main characters are the most sunny, happy, optimistic, loving creatures on the face of the Earth. I couldn't be happier that's where I start. I can put as many flawed people in the dog's world as I like, but the dog doesn't care. Dog doesn't judge. Dog doesn't dislike. Dog loves. That's not so bad.
You'd think skiing wouldn't be strenuous - all you have to do, after all, is start at the top and let gravity pull you to the dessert bar in the lodge. But at those elevations, you'll find about as much oxygen as you'll find kindness from your children. It's like spending six hours holding your breath.
My body believes a famine is imminent and has begun stocking up on provisions. These supplies are being stored around my waistline. I've tried explaining to my stomach that this is entirely unnecessary: I've never once, not even when I was in college and more broke than the E.U., done any actual starving.
My purpose, my whole life, had been to love him and be with him, to make him happy. I didn’t want to cause any unhappiness now—in that way, I decided it was probably better than he wasn’t here to see this, though I missed him so much at that moment the ache of it was as bad as the strange pains in my belly.
Most of what happens in the world is far beyond a dog's comprehension, so they must turn to their faith in us to help them navigate life's treacheries. Don't we, also, have unanswerable questions about the vagaries of modern existence for which the answer is beyond human grasp, so that only our faith can guide us?
I wouldn't say that I have overcome opposition so much as I have tried to understand it. The lash of judgment carries a wounding sting, and there's a deeply instinctual tendency to want to respond in kind. I am not proud that my thoughts were blackened with vile opinions about the nature of those who were attacking me.
Not too many people know it, but when I was in junior high, I was a pretty tough kid and was the leader of a street gang. Well, OK, it was less a street gang than an Ecology Club. We were pretty intimidating, though, and had our own meeting room until we got run out of there by a bunch of thugs from the Poetry Society.
I think, of all the holidays we celebrate, my least favorite is Earth Day. For one thing, I never know what sort of gift is appropriate. A jar of dirt, maybe? And it's not clear to me why Earth even needs a 'day,' since a spin on its axis creates a day. That's like giving a man who owns a shoe store a gift of a pair of shoes.
I don't think my father considered allowing a teenager to follow his dreams was necessarily good parenting, or even parenting. I think he thought I was a teenager with teenage impulses. I'm pretty sure he knew that if he just let me follow those impulses, it would wind up being very expensive and perhaps even life-endangering.
Pre-history tells us that our species used to be a hunter-gatherer society. This means that the job of raising a family was split 50-50 between the men and the women - the man's 50 percent share was to sit in the woods with a sharp stick, waiting for something to hunt to wander by, and the woman's 50 percent was to do everything else.
I think one of the wonderful messages of A Dog's Purpose is how difficult it is for humans to master love without making it a muddy mess. God invented love and it is therefore perfect, and dogs are better at celebrating this perfection than we are. When in doubt as to how we should feel, we could do far worse than trying to live life like the dogs.
As for me: I loyally remained right where I was, remembering the very first I had ever seen the boy and then just now, the very last time-and all the times in between. The deep aching grief I knew I would feel would come soon enough, but at that moment mostly what I felt was peace, secure in the knowledge that by living my life the way I had, everything had come down to this moment. I had fulfilled my purpose.