W. Bruce Cameron

I have never been able to pay attention to anything for more than a few minutes - the stories in my head have always been so much more entertaining. Only books could pull me out of my own imagination, and then it was only to plunge me into someone else's.

When I was in grade school, my teachers decided I was just about the dumbest thing to come through the door in a long time. Whatever the lesson, whatever the subject, I would sit and listen to them with a lost, glassy-eyed expression on my face.

Not too many people know it, but when I was in junior high, I was a pretty tough kid and was the leader of a street gang. Well, OK, it was less a street gang than an Ecology Club. We were pretty intimidating, though, and had our own meeting room until we got run out of there by a bunch of thugs from the Poetry Society.

Communicating with teenage girls is easy unless you're an adult, and then it's like having someone take a pair of pliers and, one-by-one, yank off your fingernails through your ears.

I've tried several diets over the past couple of years - not because I need to lose weight, but because my pants are trying to cut me in two.

Without a dog, you'll be without at least one creature who thinks you are the smartest, most decent and heroic human being on the planet.

Without a dog, no one will listen to your opinions for more than a few minutes without interrupting to tell you their opinions, which you won't find nearly as interesting.

Without a dog, you'd never have anyone demonstrate how important it is to stop every day and smell the roses... and then lift your leg on them.

An ice-fishing shanty is basically a tin outhouse on a frozen lake, except that in an outhouse, the hole has a purpose. In ice fishing, the hole is what you stare at for hours, hoping that at some point you'll break the monotony by falling in.

My mother taught me to drive using the 'Detroit Method,' where speed limits and traffic lights are taken as cute suggestions.

My parents live in the part of the United States that is Canada. It is so far north that Minnesota lies in the same direction as Miami. They have four distinct seasons: Winter, More Winter, Still More Winter, and That One Day Of Summer.

God invented love, and it is therefore perfect, and dogs are better at celebrating this perfection than we are. When in doubt as to how we should feel, we could do far worse than trying to live life like the dogs.

My advice to anybody, including myself, is if you're going through a bad period, and you just can't see the world's on your shoulders and no day is a good day, you're missing the whole point of the experience. And that's something dogs know from the moment they come bounding up to you as a puppy.

I think I'm good at training dogs, but none of my dogs agree with me on that.

None of the kids in the neighborhood had dogs. My dad walked in that Labrador, and we started running together and rolling around together like we found each other after years apart. And then, suddenly, some of the other people in the neighborhood started getting dogs, too.

A lot of people think I am the one to turn to for dog behavior issues. I'm not. All you have to do is meet Tucker; you'll know that I'm not an expert at training dogs.

With my book 'How to Remodel a Man,' I was on Oprah, Fox News, the Early Show, and Good Morning America. Oprah was the best - an hour long segment. TV is so short; you answer a few questions, and then it's over. It feels like a hit-and-run with a camera.

My dog Tucker likes to walk late at night because it is a good way to keep me awake. Apparently, the one time I took him for a stroll around midnight represented, to him, a commitment similar to marriage.

The loneliest, most down-on-his-luck person can have a dog who adores him. The most bitter, sour person can light up with joy when he sees his dog. It is magical, and as 'The Dog Master' reveals, it is biological - we evolved together.

I am stunned by how much time and effort I must spend marketing my book and interacting with my readers. With social media, you don't just publish a book and figure you've done your part; your fans want to talk to you, have a conversation.