There Is No Dog Suffering Quotes

"You never pay attention to me! You don't care about anyone other than those poxy poor people in your poxy files." He put on a nyah-nyah whine. " Oh, look at me, I've got AIDS, I was in a war, my baby's dead. If you're so worried about them, why don't you go live in the bloody Democratic bloody Republic of Tonga—""Congo." "Bloody Democratic bloody Republic of bloody stupid-arse Congo." (18.11)

In the middle of the Pacific, tsunamis gained momentum. Tornadoes devastated Kansas and the eastern Chinese coastal province of Jiangsu. And all because the Almighty had fallen head over heels in love with an assistant zookeeper. It wasn't a joke, and would become less of a joke as the situation progressed. God falls in love; thousands die. (26.131)

It wasn't that he didn't like to fix things. But every adjustment led to unexpected repercussions, a chain of reactions certain to render the original deed null and void. He'd had plenty of experiences like that: the sweet child saved from death who grew up to be Vlad the Impaler. Mr. B felt like some sort of cursed accountant, with figures that eternally refused to add up. (28.15)

And who knew what else the nudge displaced? The tap that slipped the doctor sideways could slide a truck into a crowd, topple a climber into a ravine, nudge a surgeon's blade. And for what? To postpone a single incident of death or suffering because one face in ten billion had caught his eye? Was he the only one who found this situation intolerable? (28.18)

"It's really tragic, all this peculiar weather," Lucy said as they left the zoo together. She stopped to stare at a ruined stroller, overturned in a puddle. "So many lives messed up." They walked in silence for a moment. "I heard on the news that the death toll is in the thousands." Bob shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away. "It's not my fault," he muttered. (29.54)

Bob rolled his eyes. Sick, starving, it was all the same. He couldn't see what the big deal was. Any observer with half a brain knew that there'd always been an underclass—serfs, slaves, untouchables—and, furthermore, that they probably deserved their horrible fates. (33.25)

Bob closes his eyes and, with an enormous roar, brings the building down upon them all. It falls in on itself, a vast bouncing hole filled with filthy water and rubble. The collapse throws up a crashing wave that slams against the building opposite and turns back on itself in the narrow road. Like the casualties of a terrible disaster at sea, people scream and weep and bleed and drown, leaving dark stains on the surface of the water, along with the contents of their homes and bowels and skulls.[…] He turns to go, stepping carefully over the body of a young woman crushed in what is left of the stairwell. Surely it is time that he and Mr. B found a new place to live in any case, maybe bigger, in a better neighborhood, with more windows and a nicer view. (40.25)

"OK, it doesn't look so bad today. But just you wait. Some awful new thing will begin any minute. It always does." The older man shrugs. "It's not cruelty, you see. It's thoughtlessness. Negligence." He looks away and his face sags. "Who knows," he says softly. "Perhaps even a lack of clarity as to the nature of his responsibility." (45.39)

Churning in Mr. B's brain is a great stinking stew—of faith, commitment and love in the face of indifference, betrayal, despair. The world is not just full of suffering—it is full of perversity, of things that go horribly wrong more or less at random. For the hell of it. (45.43)

Around the world in every place without hope or light, the people stand, faces upturned with wonder. For a brief instant in the long and painful history of the planet, wars stop, blood feuds are forgotten, no one is murdered or desperate or sad. The entire world hesitates, uncertain and amazed. Perhaps, some think, the Red Sea really did part. Perhaps stone tablets truly did come down from the sky. If whales can fly, surely more miracles are possible? Tomorrow another; the day after, another? (46.32)