Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.
It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.
Many a person who started out to conquer the world in shining army has ended up just getting along. The horse got tired, the army rusty. The goal was removed and unsure.
Plot is a framework on which to drape other things. So once that’s working, I can just let it go and do all the stuff that I love – ‘Trojan horse’ it. There are so many great YA heroines, and that’s fantastic, but what about the emotionally complex boy out there? That’s who I tend to write about.
I feel very meditative when I ride. A horse does not know whether my movie is a hit or a flop or what is happening in my relationship.
I discovered that the horse is life itself, a metaphor but also an example of life’s mystery and unpredictability, of life’s generosity and beauty, a worthy object of repeated and ever changing contemplation.
When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars people said, ‘Nah, what’s wrong with a horse?’ That was a huge bet he made, and it worked.
How should a man be capable of grooming his own horse, or of furbishing his own spear and helmet, if he allows himself to become unaccustomed to tending even his own person, which is his most treasured belonging?
The minute I put my leg on a horse and say, ‘Come on, let’s go,’ I absolutely believe that the horse and I can do it and that we will do it. And I am always shocked when we actually don’t do it. If the analytical mind ever overrode that optimist in me, I’d be in some serious trouble.
For the sake of argument and illustration I will presume that certain articles of ordinary diet, however beneficial in youth, are prejudicial in advanced life, like beans to a horse, whose common ordinary food is hay and corn.
I take the kids horse riding every weekend at Quob Stables – the people there are lovely.
I remember typing up my dissertation sitting in a horse box – I didn’t qualify for a caravan – on a set in Pinewood on my first film, ‘Still Crazy.’
I definitely like taking the dark horse approach and picking people you should not be getting behind, and you figure out a way to get behind them.
First of all, I have to have trucks because I live most of my time on a horse farm, so I’ve gotta have trucks. It’s in the northeast; I’ve got to have pickup trucks to move snow, number one. Number two, just if I’m driving, I don’t have to have an SUV, but I want a big car.
I describe my personal style as ‘mythic space horse with chocolate box tendencies.’
Sailing is in the same vein as horse riding. There’s a beauty to it; it’s an elegant sport. You have to employ your intelligence. It’s technical, but you also have to take into account the natural elements – the wind, the water, the weather.
I love getting paid to ride a horse.
The thing I like about my body is that it’s strong. I can move furniture around my apartment. I can ride my horse… I can play basketball. It’s a well functioning machine.
I think I’m the only professional horse rider from the movie industry. Strangely, I’ve seen no men from the industry at equestrian events. Though I’ve seen some ladies like Diya Mirza and Lara Dutta at the race course. Women, by the way, make superior horse riders.
‘Lassie’ was amazing. I didn’t have any scenes with humans. There’s a couple little bits, here or there, but mainly just me and my horse and a couple of dogs in the Isle of Man.
It is probably like an artist. They see in their head what they want to draw, and they draw it. It is like I have a feeling inside me that I want to create on a horse, and that is what I do.
I split my time between Santa Barbara and Aspen. I live on a pretty fast horse.
A man in passion rides a horse that runs away with him.
You’ll probably get three horses and you have to draw a good buckin’ horse. That’s mighty tough.
I have no time for real horses, so I have a plastic horse. Large size. Called Max Von Sydow. For photographs it looks real. If I do a photo shoot and it stands in the background, you think it’s a horse. A horse is a horse.
It’s going to be hard to ever have a horse to replace Valegro. He is a professor. I think he read the dressage book and learnt it all before he ever did it.
I own a horse and ride, but I don’t know racing or betting.
Alimony is like buying oats for a dead horse.
I loved horses and horse books as a child.
I think, in BMX, it’s a lot like horse racing. I wouldn’t really bet on it.
It’s kind of beating a dead horse if you’re talking about going out and saying wrestling’s fake, or this or that. People don’t want to hear that. They want to hear, they wanted to find an inside story.
It takes a good deal of physical courage to ride a horse. This, however, I have. I get it at about forty cents a flask, and take it as required.
When you’re taking a fence on a horse, you don’t think much; your body does all the thinking, and you’re over or you’re not over. It’s much the same when you are doing a tricky thing with a pen. There are times when I’m writing very, very fast.
When I was at university in Birmingham, I used to spend half my grant betting on horse racing. Seven terms out of nine, I made a profit.
Marry someone who flatters you. Because I’ve written 80 books since ‘War Horse’ but when my wife reads one, all she says is, ‘It’s quite good, but it’s not as good as ‘War Horse,’ is it?’
My mother’s people are Old Order Mennonite – horse and buggy Mennonite, very close cousins to the Amish. I grew up in Lancaster County and lived near Amish farm land.
You have got to decide, look, this is who I am; this is my best way to present myself, and I’m going to ride that horse to the finish line. Not everybody will like it, but that’s OK.
I have a birthmark on the inside of my left knee that resembles an upside-down sea horse.
Nine times out of 10, extenuating circumstances aside, I believe that people are where they are by some kind of choice on their part. You need to acknowledge that, ‘Hey, I’m here because I steered my horse in this direction.’
It’s… a hard thing for a director, to think you came up with a shot, something from your mind, and someone died while doing it. It’s the worst thing you’ll ever have to live with. It was very hard for me to get back on the horse again.
If a horse has four legs, and I’m riding it, I think I can win.
I always like to look for adventure when I go away. I have gone on several horse adventures with my wife – from Guangxi we went up to the High Tibetan region. We also went along the Hurunui River on horseback in the South Island of New Zealand.
Every kid has a toy that they believe is their best friend, that they believe communicates with them, and they imagine it being alive, their toy horse or car or whatever it is. Stop-motion is the only medium where we literally can make a toy come to life, an actual object.
When Steven Spielberg thinks you’re the one, then I’ll do anything. If you want me to put a dead horse on my head, I’ll do it.
Even those that hate Hillary admit she is a work horse and not a show horse. She gets down into the nuts and bolts and figures out, ‘What’s the policy, what’s the substance?’
When a horse is feeling good, you can sense that, a lot like the tension a fisherman feels on his line when he hooks something.
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.
Ride the horse in the direction that it’s going.
Poverty was an ornament on a learned man like a red ribbon on a white horse.
I mean, I’ve done college basketball, a horse race, a bunch of different things and they’d blow by but golf has a frenetic pace of bouncing around from shot to shot and green to green and, in essence, acre to acre over this huge plot of land with over 150 players who are their own team.
Sioux was always a horse culture, especially the Lakota Sioux. My mom is from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation; my dad is from a Sioux Indian reservation. Both tribes are Lakota.
Yeah, pretending to ride a horse is actually a lot harder than riding a horse.
For 20 years I’ve been screaming at these guitar companies, saying, ‘It’s abnormal to put your arm around an acoustic guitar that is about 6 to 8 inches deep.’ Your arm reaches over, and you start to strum, and then all of a sudden you get a charley horse in your back. The older you get, the greater the charley horse.
I’ve always fancied being a bit of warrior, on a horse swinging a sword around, sorting out the men… Oh yes, that sounds lovely.
Without good horses, you are nothing. In polo, it’s 70 per cent horse, 30 per cent rider. And I have the best horses.
I don’t even like old cars. I’d rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God’s sake.
I really liked the idea of a talking horse in a human world.
The airplane I usually fly has 450 horse power, and it’s all made out of carbon fibre – you can’t break it; your body will break before the airplane does.
