I discovered that the horse is life itself, a metaphor but also an example of lifes mystery and unpredictability, of lifes generosity and beauty, a worthy object of repeated and ever changing contemplation. – Jane Smiley
In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it. – Jane Smiley
If to live is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness. – Jane Smiley
I learned why out riding alone is an oxymoron: An equestrian is never alone, is always sensing the other being, the mysterious but also understandable living being that is the horse. – Jane Smiley
But he wore a moustache—a shaggy moustache too: nothing in the meek and merciful way, but quite in the fierce and scornful style: the regular Satanic sort of thing—and he wore, besides, a vast quantity of unbrushed hair. – Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, 1843