Loyal companions are an unequaled grace, stanching fear before it bleeds you numb, a reliable antidote for creeping despair.

Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through this life--and they are the only things from this world that we could hope to see in the next.

Tommy and Scootie locked eyes. Only minutes ago, he wouldn't have believed that he could ever have felt such a kinship with the Labrador as he felt now.

Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy.

Terror and pleasure are linked in us. We are a baldly miswired species, Martie. Terror delights us, both the experience of terror and the dealing out of it to others. We are healthier if we admit to this miswiring and do not struggle to be better than our natures allow.

...hope and trust will more reliably keep a man afloat, while fear is more like to sink him.