Old Yeller Quotes

What I mean is, things like that happen. They may seem might cruel and unfair, but that's how life is a part of the time. But that isn't the only way life is. A part of the time, it's mighty good. And a man can't afford to waste all the good part, worrying about the bad parts. That makes it all bad

Old Yeller.

was trembling

I

But that isn’t the only way life is. A part of the time, it’s mighty good. And a man can’t afford to waste all the good part, worrying about the bad parts. That makes it all bad…. You understand?

I reached in and let him lick my hand. 'Yeller,' I said, 'I'll be back. I'm promising that I'll be back.

I always hated those classic kid movies like Old Yeller or The Yearling where the beloved pet dies. What would be so wrong with having those damn kids learn their lessons about mortality from watching Grandpa kick? Then at least the dog would be around to comfort them.

... I guessed that when you are nearly a man, you have to learn to put up with a lot of aggravation from little old bitty kids.

Now nothing was left hanging to the pole but the frazzled ends of the snapped blades.

Well, when you're fourteen years old, you can't afford to mix in a rock fight with your five-year-old brother. You can't do it, even when you're in the right. You just can't explain a thing like that to your folks. All they'll do is point out how much bigger you are, how unfair it is to your little brother.

I remember like yesterday how he strayed in out of nowhere to our log cabin on Birdsong Creek. He made me so mad at first that I wanted to kill him. Then, later, when I had to kill him, it was like having to shoot some of my own folks.

What on earth, boys!

pool herd” of their little separate bunches of steers and trailed them to the new cattle market at Abilene, Kansas.

Then at night, we could hardly sleep. This

We called him Old Yeller. The name had a sort of double meaning. One part meant that his short hair was a dingy yellow, a color that we called “yeller” in those days. The other meant that when he opened his head, the sound he let out came closer to being a yell than a bark. I remember like yesterday how he strayed in out of nowhere to our log cabin on Birdsong Creek. He made me so mad at first that I wanted to kill him. Then, later, when I had to kill him, it was like having to shoot some of my own folks.

When it came to gunfire Jumper didn’t have any more sense than a red ant in a hot skillet.

everybody,

You're getting to be a big boy; and while I'm gone, you'll be the man of the family. I want you to act like one. You take care of Mama and Little Arliss. You look after the work and don't wait around for your mama to point out what needs to be done. Think you can do that?

That was as rough a thing as I ever heard tell of happening to a boy. And I'm mighty proud to learn how my boy stood up to it. You couldn't ask any more of a grown man... It's not a thing you can forget. I don't guess it's a thing you ought to forget. What I mean is, things like that happen. They may seem mighty cruel and unfair, but that's how life is part of the time. But that isn't the only way life is. A part of the time, it's mighty good. And a man can't afford to waste all the good part, worrying about the bad parts. That makes it all bad.

He is just something that happened to us, in a time of loss and sadness and sickness and uncertainty, when, as the boy Little Arliss said in Old Yeller, we needed us a dog.

They’re all going to wind up miserable at the end.” Nick appears over the back of the sofa, still holding a cast-iron frying pan and looking like he wants to grab the book from Andy’s hand. “No, they won’t. I read the final chapter.” “You did what?” Nick sounds scandalized. “I’m not wasting my time on things that make me sad.” He learned that lesson with Old Yeller, thank you very much.

it occurred to him that there were a lot of stories for kids with stuff like this in them, stuff that threw acid all over your emotions. Hansel and Gretel being turned out into the forest, Bambi’s mother getting scragged by a hunter, the death of Old Yeller. It was easy to hurt little kids, easy to make them cry, and this seemed to bring out a strangely sadistic streak in many story-tellers . . . including, it seemed, Beryl Evans.

I think back to our fearsome disaster of a night together, with the Old Yeller and the awkward and her pretty much jumping me in an alley. And then her pretty much jumping me in the car. Me pretty much wanting to jump out of my whole existence. And suddenly, I feel really grateful for that whole crazy-ass experience. I’m not sure where I’d be if it hadn’t happened, but … chances are it wouldn’t be here. It’s not like I know where stuff’s going to go from this point. Probably more difficult, scary, confusing, stressful-as-all places. But I’ve got a crazy old bastard trying to force-feed me citrus in the name of my own health, and that? That’s not something I’d trade. “Thanks, Cora,” I say. “Yeah,” she replies, with this little smile that’s almost gentle, “sure.

I wonder how many dogs, in the short arc of their lives, have reset the way this one has? How many dogs, with such a tenuous grip on their own life, have touched the people around them as he has? I know I said, over and over, there was no magic in it, and I am not a man who goes through this life looking for evidence of fate, or karma, or listening for the flutter of angels. He is just something that happened to us, in a time of loss and sadness and sickness and uncertainty, when, as the boy little Arliss said in Old Yeller, we needed us a a dog.

Antidepression medication is temperamental. Somewhere around fifty-nine or sixty I noticed the drug I’d been taking seemed to have stopped working. This is not unusual. The drugs interact with your body chemistry in different ways over time and often need to be tweaked. After the death of Dr. Myers, my therapist of twenty-five years, I’d been seeing a new doctor whom I’d been having great success with. Together we decided to stop the medication I’d been on for five years and see what would happen... DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN!! I nose-dived like the diving horse at the old Atlantic City steel pier into a sloshing tub of grief and tears the likes of which I’d never experienced before. Even when this happens to me, not wanting to look too needy, I can be pretty good at hiding the severity of my feelings from most of the folks around me, even my doctor. I was succeeding well with this for a while except for one strange thing: TEARS! Buckets of ’em, oceans of ’em, cold, black tears pouring down my face like tidewater rushing over Niagara during any and all hours of the day. What was this about? It was like somebody opened the floodgates and ran off with the key. There was NO stopping it. 'Bambi' tears... 'Old Yeller' tears... 'Fried Green Tomatoes' tears... rain... tears... sun... tears... I can’t find my keys... tears. Every mundane daily event, any bump in the sentimental road, became a cause to let it all hang out. It would’ve been funny except it wasn’t. Every meaningless thing became the subject of a world-shattering existential crisis filling me with an awful profound foreboding and sadness. All was lost. All... everything... the future was grim... and the only thing that would lift the burden was one-hundred-plus on two wheels or other distressing things. I would be reckless with myself. Extreme physical exertion was the order of the day and one of the few things that helped. I hit the weights harder than ever and paddleboarded the equivalent of the Atlantic, all for a few moments of respite. I would do anything to get Churchill’s black dog’s teeth out of my ass. Through much of this I wasn’t touring. I’d taken off the last year and a half of my youngest son’s high school years to stay close to family and home. It worked and we became closer than ever. But that meant my trustiest form of self-medication, touring, was not at hand. I remember one September day paddleboarding from Sea Bright to Long Branch and back in choppy Atlantic seas. I called Jon and said, “Mr. Landau, book me anywhere, please.” I then of course broke down in tears. Whaaaaaaaaaa. I’m surprised they didn’t hear me in lower Manhattan. A kindly elderly woman walking her dog along the beach on this beautiful fall day saw my distress and came up to see if there was anything she could do. Whaaaaaaaaaa. How kind. I offered her tickets to the show. I’d seen this symptom before in my father after he had a stroke. He’d often mist up. The old man was usually as cool as Robert Mitchum his whole life, so his crying was something I loved and welcomed. He’d cry when I’d arrive. He’d cry when I left. He’d cry when I mentioned our old dog. I thought, “Now it’s me.” I told my doc I could not live like this. I earned my living doing shows, giving interviews and being closely observed. And as soon as someone said “Clarence,” it was going to be all over. So, wisely, off to the psychopharmacologist he sent me. Patti and I walked in and met a vibrant, white-haired, welcoming but professional gentleman in his sixties or so. I sat down and of course, I broke into tears. I motioned to him with my hand; this is it. This is why I’m here. I can’t stop crying! He looked at me and said, “We can fix this.” Three days and a pill later the waterworks stopped, on a dime. Unbelievable. I returned to myself. I no longer needed to paddle, pump, play or challenge fate. I didn’t need to tour. I felt normal.

Mary Anne is a real worrywart. Not to mention shynesswart and politenesswart. The teeniest things can make her cry, too — movies, books, you name it. Whisper the words “Old Yeller” to her and watch her eyes well up. Usually I have no patience for people like that. I’m the opposite — tearless and fearless, loud and proud. But I’ve known Mary Anne since we were babies, and she happens to be my best friend in the world. As you may have guessed, I have a forceful personality. My friends say I’m bossy and stubborn, but don’t listen to

When I was a child, my father forbade me to read science fiction or fantasy. Trash of the highest order, he said. He didn't want me muddying up my young, impressionable mind with crap. If it wasn't worthy of being reviewed in the Times, it did not make it onto our bookshelves. So while my classmates gleefully dove into The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, A Wrinkle in Time, and The Borrowers, I was stuck reading Old Yeller. My saving grace- I was the most popular girl in my class. That's not saying much; it was easy to be popular at that age. All you had to do was wear your hair in French braids, tell your friends your parents let you drink grape soda every night at dinner, and take any dare. I stood in a bucket of hot water for five minutes without having to pee. I ate four New York System wieners (with onions) in one sitting. I cut my own bangs and- bam!- I was queen of the class. As a result I was invited on sleepovers practically every weekend, and it was there that I cheated. I skipped the séances and the Ouija board. I crept into my sleeping bag with a flashlight, zipped it up tight, and pored through those contraband books. I fell into Narnia. I tessered with Meg and Charles Wallace; I lived under the floorboards with Arrietty and Pod. I think it was precisely because those books were forbidden that they lived on in me long past the time that they should have. For whatever reason, I didn't outgrow them. I was constantly on the lookout for the secret portal, the unmarked door that would lead me to another world. I never thought I would actually find it.

But no matter how many movies we watched, we never learned their deepest lesson: they end. George Bailey finally sees his life as wonderful. Rosebud, we find out, is a sled. Travis shoots Old Yeller. One of the things that distinguishes life from movies is the pause button. We can keep Travis' finger on the trigger, the barrel staring down his Yeller, but there is no pause button for the things that matter.

I’m not wasting time on things that make me sad.” He learned that lesson with Old Yeller, thank you very much. “Andy, you publish a newspaper. It’s the saddest thing anyone could want to read.

Happy endings are for suckers. Even Old Yeller had to die.

A black pit bull barreled against the fence, jaws dripping with saliva, viciously barking like Old Yeller after the hydrophobia kicked in.

through me. I didn’t know much about hydrophobia,