QOTW: Anne Raver

The Quote of the Week

Well said.

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring–it was peace.”

―often attributed to Milan Kundera 

When I was researching When Ivy Met Adam, I went on a kind of Garden of Eden hunt. I did a lot of research into Adam and Eve and Paradise.

The quote above didn’t pop up when I did all that research—the shame is I might’ve included Ivy and Adam’s dogs Koa and Meile earlier if I’d had this inspiration.

But it turns out it may not have appeared in my research because it may not have been said by Milan Kundera (as it is often attributed), or by the same person all at once at all.

A lovely site I refer to often, Quote Investigator, has this to say:

Quote Investigator: The earliest strong match located by QI occurred in a 1994 article in “The New York Times” by gardening columnist Anne Raver. She discussing the death of her beloved dog Molly, and she referred to the novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera which included the depiction of a cherished dog approaching its final years.

“Dogs, Mr. Kundera says, are our link to Paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring — it was peace.”

It is essential to note that the opinion Raver ascribed to Kundera was not enclosed in quotation marks. QI believes that Raver was using her own words to present a summary of Kundera’s viewpoint. Later writers improperly placed the statement between quotation marks and attributed the words directly to Kundera.

So, really, this quote should be attributed to Anne Raver.

What is your most cherished memory of a dog? 📚