The Ride of Her Life Quotes

“Because that’s the thing about the future. You can’t get there by imagining. You can only get there one step at a time, and the hardest part is taking that first step.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won’t.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“But one thing Annie had figured out in her almost sixty-three years of life was that although you could dip your toe in a pond on a summer day and guess how cold it was going to be, you never really knew for sure until you plugged your nose and closed your eyes and jumped all the way in. The unexpected could always be a shock, but sometimes it was the expected, the predictable, the resigned acceptance of whatever bad thing was coming your way that could end up dragging you down.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“destiny is foreordained, but what is to stop you from riding straight out to meet it? When she bid goodbye to this lovely woman, Annie reminded her that hope is an endless well that never runs dry—all she needed to do was keep hold of her bucket and keep going down for another draw.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“As she passed through Maine, Annie would interpret a certain expression on someone's face as possibly a family trait. She saw the Stuart in a stranger's clear blue eyes, the Libby in someone's adventurous spirit. Everyone she encountered might be a distant cousin. She felt that her people were everywhere, and because of that she couldn't fully be a stranger.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“In the words of Henry Ward Beecher, “The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won’t.” Whether”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“If you think you are beaten, you are; If you think you dare not, you don’t. If you’d like to win, but you think you can’t, It’s almost a cinch you won’t. If you think you’ll lose, you’ve lost, For out in the world we find Success begins with a fellow’s will— And it’s all in the state of mind.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“And isn't that what hope is? Not a wish, not a specific thing you pray will be delivered to you but merely an expectation that whatever dark, sleety side of the road you may find yourself on will not last forever”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“Map out your future—but do it in pencil. The road ahead is as long as you make it. Make it worth the trip. —Jon Bon Jovi”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did…. If you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life. —Abraham Lincoln”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“Winter is not a season…it’s an industry. —Sinclair Lewis”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“Perhaps Art Linkletter captured Annie best when he explained why he’d felt an immediate kinship when he met her: “Not only was her calm assurance infectious, but she also transmitted to our audience the quiet strength of her personal philosophy—that happiness comes only to those who participate in the adventure of life, and that true security is, in essence, a state of mind.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“Why don’t you go on west to California? There’s work there, and it never gets cold. Why, you can reach out anywhere and pick an orange…. Why don’t you go there? —John Steinbeck”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“You can’t fight the desert…you have to ride with it. —Louis L’Amour”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“You can be so worried about the challenge in front of you that you fail to realize that you’ve been chipping away at it all along.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“Maybe your destiny is foreordained, but what is to stop you from riding straight out to meet it? When she bid goodbye to this lovely woman, Annie reminded her that hope is an endless well that never runs dry—all she needed to do was keep hold of her bucket and keep going down for another draw.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“They were all Americans; they all shared a sense of responsibility and an expectation that you should treat people, even those you don’t know, with neighborly kindness.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“And isn’t that what hope is? Not a wish, not a specific thing that you pray will be delivered to you, but merely an expectation that whatever dark, sleety side of the road you might find yourself on will not last forever.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. —Helen Keller”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other. —Ann Landers”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. —Jack Kerouac”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. —Abraham Joshua Heschel”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“Mud time was a rhapsody of running water: retreating icicles plinked from rooftops, and melting snow trilled a melody, tinkling into rivulets, harmonizing”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“into burbling streams, crescendoing into the fast-swelling Bog Creek, until it rolled into the thundering Little Androscoggin, now overflowing its banks and crackling with branches and dead leaves.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“Isn't that just how life is? You can plan but you couldn't control much, except your own two feet and which way you point them.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“Not only was her calm assurance infectious, but she also transmitted to our audience the quiet strength of her personal philosophy—that happiness comes only to those who participate in the adventure of life, and that true security is, in essence, a state of mind.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“the”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“feel”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

“She didn’t look down on the down-and-out; nor did she look up to the high-and-mighty. She was imbued with an innate sense that we were all created equal—people, animals, rich, poor, everyone.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America