“To my mind, the only possible pet is a cow. Cows love you. They will listen to your problems and never ask a thing in return. They will be your friends forever. And when you get tired of them, you can kill and eat them. Perfect.”

“We love dogs and eat cows not because dogs and cows are fundamentally different—cows, like dogs, have feelings, preferences, and consciousness—but because our perception of them is different.”

“You should never hesitate to trade your cow for a handful of magic beans.”

“Remember, if this is your world, you're one of them, a teenager. You live in two worlds. You're with them, day in, day out, and you'll never know, Mac, what that does to your mind. Teenager forever. June will come and it’s bye-bye teacher, nice knowin' you, my sister's gonna be in your class in September. But there’s something else, Mac. In any classroom, something is always happening. They keep you on your toes. They keep your fresh. You'll never grow old, but the danger is you might have the mind of an adolescent forever. That's a real problem, Mac. You get used to talking to those kids on their level. Then when you go to a bar for a beer you forgot how to talk to your friends and they look at you. They look at your like you just arrived from another planet and they're right.”

“Some friends are more significant and important than other friends. A special friend can often change your life for the better. You will know when this special person enters your life because of the respect you have for them. They will never lie or set you aside for someone or something else. You will have undying trust in this person that any words spoken will never find another ear. They always returned calls at the earliest possible time. They will check in often to see what is going on in your life and just talk. Your accomplishments will be applauded with praise and losses will never be repeated. This friend has you melted within their heart as you do theirs. When you find such a person be sure to return the love and understand they have gifted you and your life.”

“Yet voluble of dumb violence. You look
Across the roofs as sigil and as ward
And in your centre mark them and are cowed...”

“Sometimes you look in a field and you see a cow and you think it's a better cow than the one you've got in your own field. It's a fact. Right? And it never really works out that way.”

“Your enemies can kill you, but only your friends can hurt you.”

“Abstain rigorously from eating the flesh of cows and all beneficent animals, lest you be made to face a strict reckoning in this world and the next; for by eating the flesh of cows and other domestic animals, you involve your hand in sin, and thereby think, speak, and do what is sinful; for though you may eat but a mouthful, you involve your hand in sin, and though a camel be slain by another person in another place, it is as if you who eat its flesh had slain it with your own hand.”

“When nobody will look at you, you can stare a hole in them. Picking out all the little details you'd never stare long enough to get if they'd even just return your gaze, this, this is your revenge.”