Dogs & Sleep

“Here is some of what I have found in my bed: mulch, grass, leaves, tiny little black things that seem (thank God) inanimate, brownish streaks I don’t want to examine, feathers, twigs, gravel, muddy paw prints, and plain dirt. I never look closely anymore; I assume the worst…

“I used to feel about king-size beds the way I do about Hummers and private jets and granite countertops, but over the past seven years I gained three dogs and thirty pounds, and my old bed, a humble queen, just didn’t cut it anymore. It was either lose the the weight, lose the dogs, or buy something bigger. King-size is what I needed, and king-size is what I got.”

– Abigail Thomas in “Sleeping with Dogs on a King-Size Bed” in Woof!: Writers on Dogs (2008), edited by Lee Montgomery

Hope

“He had sought but not found relaxation in sleep — though the wear and tear upon his system had come to make a daily nap more and more imperative — and now undertook a walk, in the hope that air and exercise might send him back refreshed to a good evening’s work.”

– Thomas Mann in Death in Venice (1930)

Wisdom

“Naps are one of the most neglected parts of modern civilization.”

– George Sheehan