Rider Attitude Quotes

A horse is as mighty as its rider.

He tries again, swallowing hard to ease away the painful lump in his throat. "It's just important. I love you. I'm yours. I need people to know." "Alright," Lindsay says suddenly. He leans down to grab at Pip's bag, throwing stuff out onto the carpet, his iPod and phone and wallet and gloves and Attitude magazine until he finds what he's looking for, a green marker pen, and holds it between his teeth while he starts tugging at the hem of Pip's t-shirt. Pip's too surprised to do anything but submit, he lets Lindsay peel off his t-shirt and throw that on top of all the things from his bag then just watches as Lindsay pulls the pen out of the cap in his mouth and signs his name in big green letters on the side of Pip's stomach. He holds his breath, trying not to suck in the belly fat everybody else keeps telling him is imaginary. "There, you're mine, are you fucking happy now?" Lindsay snaps, and throws the recapped pen across the room to get lost in the bookcase somewhere.

It's hard to have a serious conversation with you when you're wearin' lighted cocks on your head." AJ defiantly thrust out her chin and the penises bobbled. "We aren't having a conversation. You're give me tough-guy attitude. If you won't acknowledge me in public, you don't have the right to chastise me for anything I do in public or in private. And now you lost the right to do anything to me in private either, bucko." "Quit bein' so goddamm childish." Her eyes narrowed to silver slits. "Quit bein' such a goddamn dickhead." "You're the one with dicks on your head, baby doll." "Yeah? I can take mine off any old time I please, but you wear your dickhead like a second skin. Or should I say as a second foreskin?

The critic of the Adepts would form a truer opinion of their attitude if he did not look upon them as guardians of a treasure, grudgingly doling it out to applicants whose rights it was impossible to ignore or defy, but rather as trainers of racehorses, patiently trying beast after beast in the hope that one may ultimately be found that will win the Grand National. The Adept who accepts an unsuitable pupil is guilty of cruelty just as much as the rider who sends a horse at a fence it cannot take.

Old Scully, who according to Jennifer, hadn't the imagination to think the worst. Something she said once, as though neurosis was an artform.

She was still glad she looked like Scully. He wasn't pretty either, but pretty people weren't the kind you need. Pretty people saw themselves in the mirror and were either too happy or too sad. People like Billie just shrugged and didn't care. She didn't want to turn into anyone pretty. Anyway, she had scars now, you only had to look.

From the perspective of inclusive fitness, unfamiliar others are potential free-riders and, out of a concern that they will be exploited by others, people reduce considerably their altruistic attitudes and behavior in a general way in more diverse communities. This loss of trust is a symptom of a breakdown in social cohesion and is surely a forerunner of the sort of ethnic conflict that is always likely to break out if allowed to do so. This is undoubtedly the reason why multicultural nation-states are forever promoting tolerance and ever more punitive sanctions for the expression of ethnic hostility, even going so far to as to discourage the expression of opinion about the reality of ethnic and racial differences. Currently these measures are directed at the host population when they express reservations about the wisdom of mass immigration, but this will surely change as it becomes ever more obvious that it is the presence of competing ethnic groups that is creating the tension and not the expressed reservations of the majority population. The real danger for modern democracies is that in their zeal to promote multicultural societies, they will be forced to resort to the means that have characterized all empires attempting to maintain their hegemony over disparate peoples.

I just helped with a birthing." Amber flames lit his angry dark eyes. "Women have no business doing that kind of work. It's not decent!" Thoroughly provoked by his unreasonable attitude, Willow completely forgot Miriam's presence. "Well, that's a lamebrain thing to say, considering it's us females who do the birthing. All men do is prime their-" "Willow!" Miriam interjected. "That is quite enough!" Seemingly disgusted with both of them, Miriam waved Rider off dismissively. "Mr. Sinclair, you've seen for yourself she's quite all right so I suggest you take yourself elsewear." "Fine! It's a little too whiffy around here for me anyway." He jerked Sultan around and rode off in a monstrous huff. Willow was pricked by his disdain more than she cared to admit. "Did you hear what he said? He said I stink! You'd think I'd just climbed out of a pig sty! Hell, how would he know if I stink? He wasn't even close enough to sniff me." Miriam exhaled a deep sigh and wrinkled her nose. "Well, believe me, I'm close enough!" Miriam bristled but then recognized the teasing twinkle in Miriam's soft hazel eyes and broke into a grin. "It'll never do to stick you in a tub," the landlady observed. "I'd kill myself, filling and dumping it before we got you clean. Stay here and don't move. I'll be right back." Miriam returned, loaded down with towels, soap, and clean clothes. "Lead the way to that swimming hole you were telling me about." The two women silently traipsed down the narrow path to the river, Willow brooding over Rider's sarcasm and Miriam wondering if Willow's clothes could be laundered or if she should just burn them.

All Night, All Night Rode in the train all night, in the sick light. A bird Flew parallel with a singular will. In daydream's moods and attitudes The other passengers slumped, dozed, slept, read, Waiting, and waiting for place to be displaced On the exact track of safety or the rack of accident. Looked out at the night, unable to distinguish Lights in the towns of passage from the yellow lights Numb on the ceiling. And the bird flew parallel and still As the train shot forth the straight line of its whistle, Forward on the taut tracks, piercing empty, familiar -- The bored center of this vision and condition looked and looked Down through the slick pages of the magazine (seeking The seen and the unseen) and his gaze fell down the well Of the great darkness under the slick glitter, And he was only one among eight million riders and readers. And all the while under his empty smile the shaking drum Of the long determined passage passed through him By his body mimicked and echoed. And then the train Like a suddenly storming rain, began to rush and thresh-- The silent or passive night, pressing and impressing The patients' foreheads with a tightening-like image Of the rushing engine proceeded by a shaft of light Piercing the dark, changing and transforming the silence Into a violence of foam, sound, smoke and succession. A bored child went to get a cup of water, And crushed the cup because the water too was Boring and merely boredom's struggle. The child, returning, looked over the shoulder Of a man reading until he annoyed the shoulder. A fat woman yawned and felt the liquid drops Drip down the fleece of many dinners. And the bird flew parallel and parallel flew The black pencil lines of telephone posts, crucified, At regular intervals, post after post Of thrice crossed, blue-belled, anonymous trees. And then the bird cried as if to all of us: 0 your life, your lonely life What have you ever done with it, And done with the great gift of consciousness? What will you ever do with your life before death's knife Provides the answer ultimate and appropriate? As I for my part felt in my heart as one who falls, Falls in a parachute, falls endlessly, and feel the vast Draft of the abyss sucking him down and down, An endlessly helplessly falling and appalled clown: This is the way that night passes by, this Is the overnight endless trip to the famous unfathomable abyss.

Willow turned her gaze from him as he sat down on the bed and smoothed her tangled hair off her face. "I'm sorry I wasn't here for you, sweetheart. Are you all right now?" Willow couldn't help flinching from his touch. "Of course I'm all right," she snapped. Rider jerked his hand back as if bitten. "Freckles, honey, is something wrong, something you're not telling me?" The angry redhead shrugged. "What could possibly be wrong?" "I don't know. You just seem a little....out of sorts." Bastard, she silently cursed. But aloud she said, "I'm fine. Just tired, I guess." "Do you want me to bring your supper to you in here? I'd be happy to keep you company." "I would like to have my supper in here but don't bother yourself on my account. I'm sure you have things to discuss with Pa and the boys." Rider stood abruptly, obviously at a loss over her attitude. "Fine,Willow, if that's what you want." "It is." He opened the door to leave but halted when she called, "Rider." "Yes?" "You better move your things in with one of the boys. Miriam is sharing my bed tonight." "Tonight? But I'm leaving tomorrow and won't be back until-" "Really,Rider, it's only for one night and I ain't,er, am not in any shape for fooling around!" "I know that," he bit out, his ire piqued now. "I just thought it might be nice to hold you." With that, he slammed out the door and Willow broke into tears. Before they stopped, her head was pounding all over again.

For abolitionists, who advocated the immediate emancipation of all slaves, and free-soilers, who simply opposed the spread of slavery into the western territories, the existence of such a group proved the destructive effect of slavery on social morals and human industry and the inordinate economic power of the planter elite. It also served as an implicit warning of the disastrous consequences of the spread of slavery into nonslaveholding regions and its debilitating effect on the work ethic of otherwise stalwart white farmers. For slave-holders, particularly those at the apex of southern society, the idleness of rural working-class whites justified the “peculiar institution” and made clear the need for a planter-led economic and social hierarchy. Planter D. R. Hundley wrote, for example, that “poor whites” were “the laziest two-legged animals that walk erect on the face of the earth . . . [and exhibited] a natural stupidity or dullness of intellect that almost surpasses belief.” To abolitionists and proslavery ideologues alike, therefore, southern poor whites utterly lacked industry, intelligence, social propriety, and honor, the essential ingredients for political and social equality and thus should not be trusted with political decision-making.7 Northern and southern middle- to upper-class commentators perceived this class of people as so utterly degraded that they challenged their assertion of “whiteness,” the one claim southern working-class whites had to political equality, “normative” status, and social superiority to free and enslaved blacks. Like Byrd and the author of “The Carolina Sand-Hillers,” journalists and travel writers repeatedly compared “poor whites” unfavorably to other supposedly inferior people of color, be they enslaved blacks, Indians, or even Mexican peasants. Through a variety of arguments, including genetic inferiority, excessive interbreeding with “nonwhites,” and environmental factors, such as the destructive influences of the southern climate, rampant disease, and a woefully inadequate diet, these writers asserted that “poor whites” were neither truly “white” nor clearly “nonwhite” but instead, a separate “‘Cracker’ race” in all ways so debased that they had no capacity for social advancement. This attitude is clear in an 1866 article from the Boston Daily Advertiser that proclaimed that this social class had reached depths of “[s]uch filthy poverty, such foul ignorance, such idiotic imbecility” that they could never be truly civilized. “[T]ime and effort will lead the negro up to intelligent manhood,” the author concluded, “but I almost doubt if it will be possible to ever lift this ‘white trash’ into respectability.”8 Contempt for working-class whites was almost as strong among African Americans as among middle-class and elite whites. Enslaved African Americans invented derogatory terms containing explicit versions of “whiteness” such as “(poor) white trash” and “poor buckra” (a derivative form of the West African word for “white man”). Although relations between slaves and non-elite southern whites were complex, many slaves deeply resented the role of poor whites as overseers and patrol riders and adopted their owners’ view that elite southern planters were socially and morally superior. Many also believed that blacks, enslaved and free, formed a middle layer of social respectability between the planter aristocracy at the top of the social system and the “poor whites” at the bottom. The construction of a “poor white” and “white trash” social and cultural category thus allowed black slaves to carve out a space of social superiority, as well as permitted the white planter elite to justify enormous economic and social inequality among whites in a supposedly democratic society.9

Riot comes up in a quiet whirl of flames stirring on the concrete floor. They build into a small burning tornado that solidifies into thousands of pounds of smoldering horse. Broad. Red. All raw power. If he were a real horse, he’d be a medium draft horse, or a warmblood. Not a Budweiser Clydesdale, but you wouldn’t see him winning the Kentucky Derby, either. The guys joke because he’s the biggest of our mounts. A lightweight tank with an attitude. But he’s the greatest companion. The best. I can’t even picture what my life was like before he came along. His amber eyes find me first, then look around, checking things out, eventually coming back to me. I smile. It’s not that I hear his thoughts. It’s more that I know them. Bad day, Gideon? That’s too bad. But I’m here now so you’ll be better. Hey, nice view. “Come here, horse,” I say, but I’m the one who goes to him. I call up my armor so I don’t have to be careful about burning my clothes. Then I bury my hands deep into his mane, sending a shiver of embers into the night sky. He makes a low deep sound, telling me he’s listening. That I can tell him what I’d never say to anyone, not even Marcus. “I screwed up, Riot. Didn’t stick with the plan. Said some really stupid things. Really stupid.” Ohhh. That’s not good, Gideon. But it happens. Especially with Daryn. Don’t worry. Tomorrow you’ll do your best and try to fix it. I like Wyoming. I laugh. Then I let my face fall forward, and rest my forehead on his broad neck. Letting his fire spread over me, and through me, and around me. Warm. True. Like peace.

Sex is often represented as dirty, it is used for blackmail and deceit; it is considered shameful and unsafe, it is often misrepresented… which is silly. It’s a silly attitude to nature, energy, love. I tried to say that much in my book: I believe that sex is a great value and a blessing.

I have shed enough tears over you lately and you don't deserve any of them

You wouldn’t like horses. They smell funny. They have bad attitudes. They’re lazy. They don’t bite their riders’ arms off or flame people they don’t like. Like I said, they’re lazy. Anyone with ambition tries to flame their enemies from time to time. Besides, they eat grass. Grass! It’s incredibly gross.

You never know with dogs. My dog lives with bikes and riders, and still barks like crazy at bike riders. It's our family's shame. I tell her: "Every bite of food you eat, everything good that comes your way, is because of bikes, so no bark!" But she can't help herself; she's a terrier.

I don't encourage blasting through stop signs or riding like an idiot. I want to make that clear. But given the number of riders (and idiots) out there, there are bound to be some who ride that way and, yes, anger drivers. But they also keep drivers on their toes - here comes another cyclist; I wonder if he's as oblivious and suicidal as the last one...