#4: The Dog

"The dog I rate fourth. He is courageous, faithful, monogamous in his devotion; he is your parasite too: his failure (as compared to the cat) is that he will work for you—I mean, willingly, gladly, ape any trick, no matter how silly, just to please you, for a pat on the head; as sound and first-rate a parasite as any, his failure is that he is a sycophant, believing that he has to show gratitude also; he will debase and violate his own dignity for your amusement; he fawns in return for a kick, he will give his life for you in battle and grieve himself to starvation over your bones."
—William Faulkner, The Reivers

Faulkner's Top Five. #5: The Horse

"The horse I rate last. A creature capable of but one idea at a time, his strongest quality is timidity and fear. He can be tricked and cajoled by a child into breaking his limbs, or his heart too, in running too far too fast or jumping things too wide or hard or high; he will eat himself to death if not guarded like a baby; if he had only one gram of the intelligence of the most backward rat, he would be the rider."
—William Faulkner, The Reivers

The wisdom of a preacher-man:

"The Bible says the hairs on a man's head is numbered, but listen, brother, where does that leave the baldheaded man? Is he shut out? Is he not even kept up with? Is he cut loose adrift without his name put down in the great book of records? The good book says His eye is on the sparrow, is a hairless man not as deserving of His eye as the fowls of the air?"
—William Gay, Provinces of Night