“ I believe the intensity of the pity you feel for an animal has to do with how it evokes pity for yourself.... Innocence is something we humans pass through and leave behind, unable to return. But anim… Sigrid Nunez
“ They don't want to see me lose my home. They want me to come to my senses before it's too late. I need a better way to cope with my feelings of loss and guilt. I need bereavement therapy. Here are som… Sigrid Nunez
“ I like that, well before T.S. Eliot expressed himself on the matter, Samuel Butler stated that the severest test of the imagination was naming a cat. Sigrid Nunez
“ He has to forget you. He has to forget you and fall in love with me. That's what has to happen. Sigrid Nunez
“ The dead dwell in the conditional, tense of the unreal. But there is also the extraordinary sense that you have become omniscient, that nothing we do or think or feel can be kept from you. The extraor… Sigrid Nunez
“ Who doesn't know that the dog is the epitome of devotion? But it's this devotion to humans, so instinctual that it's given freely even to persons who are unworthy of it, that has made me prefer cats.… Sigrid Nunez
“ The problem of self-loathing isn't new. What's new is the idea that it's the people with the history of greatest injustice who have the greatest right to be heard, and that the time has come for the a… Sigrid Nunez
“ If I bring him home though, I swear he’ll spend the rest of his life waiting by the door. And he deserves better than that, don’t you think?’Yes, I think, my heart breaking. Sigrid Nunez
“ What exactly did Simone Weil mean when she said, When you have to make a decision in life, about what you should do, do what will cost you the most.Do what is difficult because it is difficult. Do wha… Sigrid Nunez
“ I confess to sudden rages. Walking in Midtown, rush hour's peak, people streaming in both directions, I find myself seething, ready to kill. Who are all these fucking people, and how is it fair, how i… Sigrid Nunez
“ Anthropomorphism, I've decided, is inescapable, and though I might try to hide it I no longer fight it. Sigrid Nunez
“ To draw me out, the therapist asks what I did for the holidays. When I tell him he says gently (he says everything gently), Sounds like that's one of the ways your loss has affected you: not wanting t… Sigrid Nunez
“ When people are very young they see animals as equals, even as kin. That humans are different, unique and superior to all other species - this they have to be taught. Sigrid Nunez
“ Here is what I learned: Simone Weil was right. Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Sigrid Nunez
“ If we could talk to animals, goes the song.Meaning, if they could talk to us.But of course that would ruin everything. Sigrid Nunez
“ What we miss - what we lose and what we mourn - isn't it this that makes us who, deep down, we truly are. Sigrid Nunez
“ I once heard a stranger in agitated conversation with her pug: And I suppose it's all my fault again, isn't it? At which, I swear, the dog rolled its eyes. Sigrid Nunez
