“He looked as though I'd just run over his pet puppy (though no actual puppies were harmed in the formation of that metaphor).”

“A young wolfhound must meet his first wolf someday, but if the wolf sees him as a puppy, if he acts the puppy, the wolf will surely kill him. The wolfhound must be a wolfhound in the wolf's eyes even more than in his own, if he is to survive.”

“Dissent is morally neutral. You can correctly call yourself a dissident because you like to kick puppies, but at the end of the day, you're just a jerk who likes to kick puppies.”

“For her, this was a metaphor, he reminded himself. Though maybe he was a metaphor too, inside his head with the Black Gang. A metaphor gone metastatic.”

“Why wouldn't I dance?' Uh, maybe because at first glance he looked like he ate puppies for breakfast and kittens for lunch?”

“Conceited little mega-puppy.”

“Puppy presents on the rug. This sucked.”

“Just as, out of habit, one consults a run-down clock as though it were still going, so too one may look at the face of a beautiful woman as though she were still in love.”

“Bringing children into it was just low, I decided. At least heʹd left puppies out.”

“Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind puppies.”