Sara Bader

A powerful collection of quotations by writers, leaders, and legends on the pain of losing a pet and overcoming grief. An animal’s love is deep, uncomplicated, unconditional, and forgiving. “Affection without ambivalence” is how Sigmund Freud described the connection. “No matter how awful the day, or how awful I am behaving at any given moment, George doesn’t care,” writes journalist John Dickerson. “He finds me smoldering in my chair and dashes to my lap.” Our lives are intricately intertwined with our pets, and together, over time, we establish rituals that are as steady as a metronome. It’s no wonder the grief is crushing when they depart—even those who’ve had time to prepare describe feeling stunned, devastated, and cracked in two. “We were a bit broken up over the death of our black Persian cat,” crime novelist Raymond Chandler confessed. “When I say a bit broken up, I am being conventional. For us it was a tragedy.” Nobel Prize–winning author V. S. Naipaul described the experience as “calamitous,” and writer May Sarton called it a “volcanic eruption of woe.” Poet Emily Dickinson was so bereft she asked for help: “Carlo died,” she announced in a letter to her friend Thomas Wentworth Higginson in 1866. “Would you instruct me now?” The Book of Pet Love and Loss is a collection of quotations—poignant thoughts and memories discovered in letters, journals, diaries, memoirs, and other original sources—from beloved cultural figures who understood this singular experience so deeply, they felt compelled to write about it. This book dignifies the profound connection we share with our animal companions, but it also provides solace as mourners document their heartache over the loss of their cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, and other animals—even, in the case of Pablo Neruda, a mongoose. Their comforting and wise words are what every animal lover needs on this journey of heartbreak and healing.

Words of Comfort and Wisdom from Remarkable People

The Book of Pet Love and Loss

Krystal

An animal's love is deep, uncomplicated, unconditional, and forgiving, blessedly unburdened by the complexities of human dynamics.

Perhaps poet Mary Oliver summed it up best: "I think they are companions in a way that people aren't. They'll lie next to you when you're sad. And they remind us that we're animals, too."

Animals teach us how to live, but they also teach us how to age- how to hold on to optimism and humor, in spite of growing limitations.

…"appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time."

It is exceedingly short, his galloping life. Dogs die so soon. I have my stories of that grief, no doubt many of you do also. It is almost a failure of will, a failure of love, to let them grow old-or so it feels. We would do anything to keep them with us, and to keep them young. The one gift we cannot give. -MARY OLIVER

"I arranged the story of her life. What I hadn't imagined was that it was the story of my life as well."

I cried for it all and spent the next several months wondering why so few songs were written about cats. -DAVID SEDARIS

Grief is remembering how you once filled his bowl and seeing the perpetually empty one. -AMY TAN

The Book of Pet Love and Loss quotes

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