A Year at the Races Quotes

“But what truly horsey girls discover in the end is that boyfriends, husbands, children, and careers are the substitute-for horses”
― Jane Smiley, A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck

“Fascination with horses predated every other single thing I knew. Before I was a mother, before I was a writer, before I knew the facts of life, before I was a schoolgirl, before I learned to read, I wanted a horse.”
― Jane Smiley, A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck

“Failure was startling, really. So startling that I hardly noticed it at all.”
― Jane Smiley, A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck

“A moment later, Jackie lifts himself into a canter. It is analyzable - I have seen the picture of how he steps so far under with his supporting hind leg that he is placing it right beneath where I am sitting; his leg and body become a U-shaped spring that lifts me forward - but it is not describable. It is neither floating nor springing. It is power without labor, thrust without force, the very opposite of any sort of aggression, the particular physics of his anatomy, the demonstration and the effect of his personality.”
― Jane Smiley, A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck