John Grogan Quotes

Dogs are my favorite role models. I want to work like a dog, doing what I was born to do with joy and purpose. I want to play like a dog, with total, jolly abandon. I want to love like a dog, with unabashed devotion and complete lack of concern about what people do for a living, how much money they have, or how much they weigh. The fact that we still live with dogs, even when we don't have to herd or hunt our dinner, gives me hope for humans and canines alike.

Every day brings a chance to live free of regret and with as much joy, fun, and laughter as you can stand.

I am so fresh in soul and spirit that life gushes and bubbles around me in a thousand springs.

Life must be lived as play.

I try to find where the fun is and go there and then get asked if I want to have more fun. That's the way I want my life to go. Follow the fun.

Trust me, the person who sings his/her heart out, laughs loud and dances like no one is watching, is the beautiful one.

And let that day be lost to us on which we did not dance once! And let that wisdom be false to us that brought no laughter with it!

A joyful life isn’t about others; it’s about the brightness that is associated with being alive. Your path to it is through anything that replaces thinking with pure flight, pure joy.

I had a dog who loved flowers. Briskly she went through the fields, yet paused for the honeysuckle or the rose, her dark head and her wet nose touching the face of every one with its petals of silk with its fragrance rising into the air where the bees, their bodies heavy with pollen hovered - and easily she adored every blossom not in the serious careful way that we choose this blossom or that blossom the way we praise or don't praise - the way we love or don't love - but the way we long to be - that happy in the heaven of earth - that wild, that loving.

A dog wakens your heart to joy and companionship.

Sophie, my dog, is the high in the highlights of my life. Even through rain, snow, ice, and general laziness, she is the reason I smile when I wake up and a comfort to me continually. I could never have imagined that a now five-pound, six-ounce dog would take over my life. But it has happened, and I am happy to have someone to look after and share my moods with.

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?

A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things-a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty.

My dogs can't do anything--and what a relief. I don't make any demands of them, and I don't try to shape them or their future. For the most part, I trust them to make the right choices for themselves. I always look forward to seeing them, and I love just watching them sleep. What a great relationship.

Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift.

Learn to laugh. Seriousness is a sin, and it is a disease. Laughter has tremendous beauty, a lightness. It will bring lightness to you, and it will give you wings to fly.

The trick is not how much pain you feel--but how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain. Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not to live, excuses, excuses, excuses.

Spontaneity is one of the joys of existence, especially if you prepare for it in advance.

Take hold of your own life. See that the whole existence is celebrating. These trees are not serious, these birds are not serious. The rivers and the oceans are wild, and everywhere there is fun, everywhere there is joy and delight. Watch existence, listen to the existence and become part of it.

Happiness is a shadow of harmony; it follows harmony. There is no other way to be happy.

There is one and only one possible road to joy: selfless love.

Once you have had a wonderful dog, a life without one, is a life diminished.

Live nutty. Just occasionally. Just once in a while. And see what happens. It brightens up the day.

If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boy and his dog and his friends. And a summer that never ends.