Marley and Me quotes

1. "'We have to do the scare test,' I said. Many times before I had recounted for Jenny the story of picking out Saint Shaun when I was a boy, and my father teaching me to make a sudden move or loud noise to separate the timid from the self-assured" (Grogan 8).
In this quote, Jenny and John are deciding which dog they are going to take home with them.
When John was a boy he did this test and had the greatest dog a boy could ever obtain. John assumed it would work with Marley too and he would turn out as great as Saint Shaun. Marley was already put to the test and passed at a young age; he was going to be great... or so John thought.

2. "When the lesson was over, she asked if I could stay after for a minute. I waited with Marley as she patiently fielded questions from other students in the class. When the last one had left, she turned to me and, in a newly conciliatory voice, said, 'I think your dog is still a little young for structured obedience training'" (Grogan 63).
At this point, John has given up on training the wild dog himself and so he went to obedience school for help. This just shows how much trouble of a dog Marley really is. John later says Marley is the only dog he has heard of to get kicked out of obedience school. Despite everything, they keep Marley and work with his overactive behavior.

3. "One night early on, as I was turning off the lights to go to bed, I couldn't find Marley anywhere. Finally I thought to look in the nursery, and there he was, stretched out on the floor beside Patrick's crib, the two of them snoring away in stereophonic fraternal bliss. Marley, our wild crashing bronco, was different around Patrick" (Grogan 109).
The normally, crazy hyper dog that John and Jenny have known their whole life is starting to take on a new side of gentleness. He seems to realize that a baby is more delicate and so he doesn't act as frantic around the new born. With his new care and calmness, Marley gains respect from his owners and they are starting to trust him more.

4. "When I looked up, there he stood, ten feet from us, facing the street, in a determined, bull-like crouch I had never seen before. It was a fighter's stance. His muscles bulged at the neck; his jaw was clenched; the fur between his shoulder blades bristled. He was intensely focused on the street and apeared poised to lunge. I realized in that instant that Jenny had been right. If the armed assailant returned, he would have to get past my dog first. At that moment I knew- I absolutely knew without a doubt- that Marley would fight him to death before he would let him at us.
There was a scream in the middle of the night in John's neighborhood. A girl had been taken by a man and threatened with a knife. When John went to go help, he left the door open and Marley came running after him. It wasn't till later that he noticed Marley standing there in protection mode. He saw the side of Marley that made him feel safe with his dog. Before this, Marley was just a dumb, silly pal; now he was a loyal guard dog.

5. "Thw Abominable Snowdog. Marley did not know what to make of this foreign substance. He jammed his nose deep into it and let loose a violent sneeze. He snapped at it and rubbed his face into it. Then, as if an invisible hand reached down from the heavens and jabbed with a giant shot of adrenaline, he took off at full throttle, racing around the yard in a series of giant, loping leaps inturrupted every several feet by a random somersault or nosedive" (Grogan 222).
Even after moving to PA, Marley is able to adjust to the weather and be his old self. In this passage, Grogan uses a lot of imagery to explain Marley's crazy actions and it really adds to the story. he uses word choice and overall way of writing just sets a very joyful happy mood to the scene. Marley definately knows how to make life joyful and happy and so it fits.

6. "No matter how much trouble he had getting up the stairs, if I returned downstairs, say to grab a book or turn off the lights, he would be right on my heels, clomping heavily down behind me. Then seconds later, he would have to repeat the torturous climb. Jenny and I both took to sneaking around behind his back one he was upstairs for the night so he would not be tempted to follow us back down" (Grogan 241).
As Marley gets older, he develops arthritus in his joints and has a lot of trouble running his normal life. The stairs were one of the hardest things for him and it really shows how loyal he is to John and Jenny that he would face the pain every night multiple times just to be with them all the time. Because it is a stupid thing to do, John and Jenny treat him with sympathy and try to eliminate some pain by sneaking but it never seemed to work. He lived with the suffering and never complainied or stopped for anything.

7. "Yes, it was only a dog, and dogs come and go in the course of human life, sometimes simply because they became an inconvenience. It was a dog, and yet every time I tried to talk about Marley to them, tears welled in my eyes" (Grogan 274).
After Marley died, there seemed to be a big empty space in the Grogans' lives. He came inside one morning from finding the perfect place to bury Marley and found his kids crying. He tried to explain to them that everything was ok and they would be fine, but John himself was having a hard time dealing with the fact that Marley wasn't coming back. John says he is the kind of person that never cries at funerals or many sad times but for some reason, a dog made him soften up; only a dog.

8. "What I really wanted to say was how this animal had touched our souls and taught us some of the most important lessons od our lives. 'A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours,' I wrote. "Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things- a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty'" (Grogan 279).
John works at a newspaper in PA and when Marley died, he decided to write a column about his story with the world's best and worst dog ever. He wrote it in tears thinking of all the times he yelled at Marley for the bad things he did and also for the fun times they had together. Marley, and any dog, is a lot more to a person's life then they ever expected. John says he taught him lessons about life that would be abesnt and unimportant to him without the help of his companion. After writing the article, John got hundreds of e-mails and letters back from readers all over the city sharing their stories and giving their sympathy. His life was changed forever because of the silly little dog that he origionally thought ruined his life. No matter what, even with silly minds and bad behaviors, dogs will always be a man's best friend.