Listen — are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life? - Mary Oliver

We need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it.

Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs?

And now you'll be telling stories
of my coming back
and they won't be false, and they won't be true
but they'll be real