Quotes from Claire Cook

There were lots of kinds of men in the world. There were lots of kinds of dogs in the world. There were lots of men who acted like dogs in the world.

I opened both eyes. Dread was sitting on my chest as if it were an animal. I mean, dread so real it had physical presence, like a Labrador retriever I could teach tricks to. Here, Dread. Sit, Dread. Roll over, Dread. Play dead, Dread.

Great, you ruined my life and you don't even remember it.

been tumbled smooth by waves

But if you truly want to reinvent your life, you're going to have to learn to say yes. Even if it feels selfish. Or scary.

I pulled my suitcase out of the backseat of my bug, along with Cannoli's new travel case, a spiffy animal print pet backpack on wheels. When I first saw it, I thought maybe the dog was supposed to wear the backpack, but it turned out the person wore the backpack with the dog in it.

But what if scrambling to pay the bills takes every minute of your day, every ounce of your creativity? What if you can't afford an au pair? What if you can't even afford an ordinary babysitter?

If you're not really into something, you don't put the time in, so you don't get good at it. Passion is the key to everyone's gifts.

Everybody knows that once you past it, you can't go back.

In surfing, and maybe even in life, the trick is to use the calm between the waves to position yourself for the next one.

Never underestimate the joy of being married to the one man at the party who knows how to dance.

He looks good for a while, but ya know, ya can't shine a sneaker.

I just figured that was the life I picked, so I had to make the most of it.

If I didn't have a job, I might have stayed in bed until I rotted.

glassblowing?" Noah shook his head. "My

Love rules without rules.

You never know what you're going to get with a pinball game," John said. "It's a lot like life. You can't control it, so you have to just roll with it and do the best you can. And if you do well enough, sometimes you get a bonus play.

Maybe deep down inside we were all still in our formative years. Maybe it was never too late for any of us to change.

What puts you so in the zone that hours and hours pass and you've barely glanced at the clock? If money were no issue, what is the thing you feel so passionately about that you'd do it for free? What do you care about enough to want to put in the time required to get better and better at it?

John Lennon once said that whenever he had an idea, he'd scribble it on a piece of paper and throw it in a drawer. When the drawer was full, he knew it was time for a new album.

One day he finally got a math concept (converting between hours and fractions of hours, as I remember) he'd been struggling and struggling with, so I praised him up and down, and told him it was a good day, a day to remember.   "It was just one minute," he said. "What's the rest of the day gonna do for me?"   "Sometimes you only get one good minute a day," I said. "You just have to make the most of it.

poor Jan alone. When she noticed I was seriously date-delayed, Christine started trying

Sometimes you only get one good minute a day," I said. "You just have to make the most of it.

A day or so later, Gary David Goldberg, who created Family Ties and Spin City and Brooklyn Bridge and owns a house in the area, stops by the store looking for something to read. He picks up a copy of Must Love Dogs from the display. His five dogs are waiting for him in his car. He turns the book over and sees it's about a big Irish family. His wife, Diana Meehan, is from a big Irish family.