Rodeo Girl Quotes

I don't get as much fan mail as an actor or singer would, but when I get a letter 99% of the time it's pointing out something that really had an impact. Like after 'My Own Private Rodeo' all these people wrote to me and said Dale's dad inspired them to come out. And this was when it was still illegal to be gay in Texas and a few other states. Another one that really stuck with me was this girl who survived Columbine. See, "Wings of the Dope," the episode where Luanne's boyfriend comes back as an angel, aired two weeks after the shooting. About a month after that, I got a letter from a girl who was there and hid somewhere in the school when it was all going on. She said the first thing she was gonna do if she survived was tell a friend of hers she was in love with him. She never did. He ended up being one of the kids responsible for it. So you can imagine how - you know, to her, it felt wrong to grieve almost, and she bottled it up. But she saw that episode and Buckley walking away at the end and something just let her finally break down and greive and miss the guy. I remember she quoted Luanne - 'I wonder if he's guardianing some other girl,' or something along that line, because she never had the guts to tell the kid. That really gets to people at Comic Con.

When a man that attractive licks his lips, a girl's got to look. And imagine...

I was disappointed when she suddenly looked away, bashful. It surprised me. Madison occurred to me as so cool and confident. This was her private space though, likely the place she was most herself, no facade, no way she had to be, just a girl with her horses. This was not the kind of place or girl that rodeo boys got to be in or near. Yet here I was, standing toe-to-toe with the goddess in her most private of cowgirl places.

His eyes are cold and restless His wounds have almost healed And she'd give half of Texas Just to change the way he feels She knows his love's in Tulsa And she knows he's gonna go Well it ain't no woman flesh and blood It's that damned old rodeo Well it's bulls and blood It's dust and mud It's the roar of a Sunday crowd It's the white in his knuckles The gold in the buckle He'll win the next go 'round It's boots and chaps It's cowboy hats It's spurs and latigo It's the ropes and the reins And the joy and the pain And they call the thing rodeo She does her best to hold him When his love comes to call But his need for it controls him And her back's against the wall And it's So long girl I'll see you When it's time for him to go You know the woman wants her cowboy Like he wants his rodeo

Put that thing down, girl. Don't you know it steals part of your soul, that little mechanical masterpiece you hold so frivolously? Don't you know it's not just mine it seals into its gears and trick mirrors, but yours, too. What you feel at this moment, what you hope for, what your dreams are, what you think your future will unfold like, it steals it all from you, too. You aren't safe just because of the side of the lens you're on. And later, when everything is said and done, and you want to forget everything that happened in these walls, when you're all alone, this picture, this piece of your soul you didn't even know was gone, will haunt you. It will come bearing knives and AKs and nine millimeters, and it will destroy you from the inside out. Put that damned thing down and stop acting like any of this is something worth remembering.

A sudden yowl from up ahead had them all starting. A small tree smoked on one side, the faint glow of fire darting from a burning patch of dead foliage. The yowl came again. Matt hurried over and peered up the tree to see a calico cat, its green eyes staring down, as if in accusation. "No," Reyna said, stopping beside him. "We are not rescuing the cat." "But the tree -" "- is on fire. I see that. Have you ever owned a cat? If they can go up, they can come down. Guaranteed." Matt eyed the feline. It eyed him back, then yowled, as if to say Well, hurry it up. "It might be too scared to come down," he said. "It's a cat," Reyna said. "They don't get scared - just annoyed, which I'm going to get if you insist on playing hero and rescuing that faker." She scowled at the cat. "Yes, I mean you. Faker." The cat sniffed, then turned to Matt, clearly sensing the softer touch. Owen stepped forward. "If you'll feel better rescuing the cat, Matt, then go ahead. We aren't on a tight schedule." Reyna waved her arms around the smoking street. "Um, Ragnarök?" "And the longer you two bicker ..." "Fine," Reyna said. "I've got this." Before Matt could protest, she walked to the base of the tree, grabbed the lowest branch, and swung up. "Rodeo girl, remember? Also, five years of gymnastics, which my mother thought would make me more graceful and feminine. Her mistake." She shimmied along a branch. "Come on, faker. I'm your designated hero for today." She looked down at Matt. "And if you ever tell anyone I rescued a cat from a tree ..." Before Matt could answer, the cat sprang to the ground. "Arggh!" Reyna said. "You scared him out," Matt said. "He just needed the extra motivation. No, wait. It's a she. Calicos are almost always female." "Are they? Huh." Reyna swung out. The cat sat on the ground below, watching. "See?" Matt said. "She's grateful." "She's gloating. Let's go.

Angel From Montgomery" I am an old woman named after my mother My old man is another child that's grown old If dreams were lightning, thunder were desire This old house would have burnt down a long time ago Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery Make me a poster of an old rodeo Just give me one thing that I can hold on to To believe in this living is just a hard way to go When I was a young girl well, I had me a cowboy He weren't much to look at, just a free rambling man But that was a long time and no matter how I try The years just flow by like a broken down dam Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery Make me a poster of an old rodeo Just give me one thing that I can hold on to To believe in this living is just a hard way to go There's flies in the kitchen, I can hear 'em there buzzing And I ain't done nothing since I woke up today How the hell can a person go to work in the morning And come home in the evening and have nothing to say Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery Make me a poster of an old rodeo Just give me one thing that I can hold on to To believe in this living is just a hard way to go John Prine, John Prine (1971)

question. “Because girls weren’t allowed to compete in bull riding. But I did goat tying, and I was a heeler and breakaway roper, too.” Mother grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “And she was a rodeo clown. You know, the ones who protect the riders from the bulls.” Gordon, one of the bull riders on the rodeo team at Tech—a guy who was a real mentor and friend to me—had been gored by a bull and died when I was a sophomore. It hit me harder than anything had in my life since my dad left. Gordon was the reason I had taken up

what’s a buckle-bunny?” She grinned. “It used to be a description of the girls who hung around rodeo cowboys looking to hook up. Now it means any Texas gold digger who’s looking for a sugar daddy.” “I’m not a gold digger.” “No, you advise them in your column. You tell them to support themselves and get their priorities straight.” “Everyone should listen to me,” I said, and Haven laughed, lifting her glass. -Ella & Haven

Pilgrims WHEN MY OLD MAN said he’d hired her, I said, “A girl?” A girl, when it wasn’t that long ago women couldn’t work on this ranch even as cooks, because the wranglers got shot over them too much. They got shot even over the ugly cooks. Even over the old ones. I said, “A girl?” “She’s from Pennsylvania,” my old man said. “She’ll be good at this.” “She’s from what?” When my brother Crosby found out, he said, “Time for me to find new work when a girl starts doing mine.” My old man looked at him. “I heard you haven’t come over Dutch Oven Pass once this season you haven’t been asleep on your horse or reading a goddamn book. Maybe it’s time for you to find new work anyhow.” He told us that she showed up somehow from Pennsylvania in the sorriest piece of shit car he’d ever seen in his life. She asked him for five minutes to ask for a job, but it didn’t take that long. She flexed her arm for him to feel, but he didn’t feel it. He liked her, he said, right away. He trusted his eye for that, he said, after all these years. “You’ll like her, too,” he said. “She’s sexy like a horse is sexy. Nice and big. Strong.” “Eighty-five of your own horses to feed, and you still think horse is sexy,” I said, and my brother Crosby said, “I think we got enough of that kind of sexy around here already.” She was Martha Knox, nineteen years old and tall as me, thick-legged but not fat, with cowboy boots that anyone could see were new that week, the cheapest in the store and the first pair she’d ever owned. She had a big chin that worked only because her forehead and nose worked, too, and she had the kind of teeth that take over a face even when the mouth is closed. She had, most of all, a dark brown braid that hung down the center of her back, thick as a girl’s arm. I danced with Martha Knox one night early in the season. It was a day off to go down the mountain, get drunk, make phone calls, do laundry, fight. Martha Knox was no dancer. She didn’t want to dance with me. She let me know this by saying a few times that she wasn’t going to dance with me, and then, when she finally agreed, she wouldn’t let go of her cigarette. She held it in one hand and let that hand fall and not be available. So I kept my beer bottle in one hand, to balance her out, and we held each other with one arm each. She was no dancer and she didn’t want to dance with me, but we found a good slow sway anyway, each of us with an arm hanging down, like a rodeo cowboy’s right arm, like the right arm of a bull rider, not reaching for anything. She wouldn’t look anywhere but over my left shoulder, like that part of her that was a good dancer with me was some part she had not ever met and didn’t feel

Actually, I think you sound more Southern than me." "I blame my Mama for that, too," he replied. "She was an old-time rodeo queen from Amarillo, Texas. She homeschooled me and my brother Dirk until high school, so the Texas twang kinda stuck. Now as for Georgia, I find it a real shame you'd want to get rid of it. I find a woman with a soft Southern drawl incredibly sexy." "Tell you what, when I decide I want to be sexy for you, I'll be sure to turn it on full force." She was a real firecracker, this Georgia girl. He liked that. He answered her with a grin. "I'll look forward to it." "In your dreams, cowboy," he thought he heard her mutter under her breath. He cocked his head, "What was that?" "Coffee?" She smiled wide. "If I recall, you promised me Starbucks.

Improvisation and sketch comedy let me choose who I wanted to be. I didn’t audition to play the sexy girl, I just played her. I got to cast myself. I cast myself as sexy girls, old men, rock stars, millionaire perverts, and rodeo clowns. I played werewolves and Italian prostitutes and bitchy cheerleaders. I was never too this or not enough that. Every week on SNL I had the opportunity to write whatever I wanted. And then I was allowed to read it! And people had to listen! And once in a blue moon it got on TV! And maybe five times it was something really good. Writing gave me an incredible amount of power, and my currency became what I wrote and said and did. If you write a scene for yourself you can say in the stage directions, “THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD ENTERS THE BAR AND ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN TURN THEIR HEADS.

Well, you know, I like this girl. A lot. We have a great connection, we have fun together. I can envision her in my life in five years, ten years. And I know that probably seems a bit premature, moving a little fast, but this isn’t my first rodeo and I’ve been stupid in relationships before. Now I know what I want, and she checks all my boxes. I think I do for her as well. And tonight is supposed to be the big night. We’ve been taking things slow, I’m a gentleman after all.

But you’re a better singer, baby,” he said. “Then why won’t God let me have that success?” I asked. “I don’t understand what He wants from me.” At the mention of God, my dad slipped into preacher mode. “He is allowing you to go through this struggle so that He can build a strong foundation in you,” he said quietly. “So that when it comes time for you to have that success, you will appreciate it. And know how much work it takes. ‘If you remain in me and my words remain in you—’ ” “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you,” I said, finishing John 15:7 for him. You can take the girl out of youth group, but you can’t take youth group out of the girl. “That’s a beautiful promise, isn’t it?” he said. “Yes,” I sighed. The verse did minister to me, though I also knew my dad didn’t really think fulfillment resided solely in sticking to scripture. Otherwise we’d still be in Richardson, and I wouldn’t have to be working so hard to prove my worth. I started to hear voices when I was alone at night, waiting for the sleeping pill to kick in. Half asleep, I would examine myself for flaws in the mirror, and a mental chorus would weigh in. They were intrusive and so mean that I was really convinced Satan was behind them. “You’re never going to be good enough, Jessica. Look who your competition is.” “Could your zits be any bigger?” “What happened to your hair? It used to be so much thicker and longer.” “Do more sit-ups, fat ass.” These thoughts derailed me just as I had to work harder to sell the album. It should have been no different than back when I stood next to the stage at a small Texas rodeo, selling my very first album. Back then, I knew if I just kept at it, people would respond. But now I was running on fumes, then beating myself up for that, too. I was fully aware that I was being unreasonable with myself—I would even beat myself up over beating myself up—but like a lot of times in my life, just because I could name the problem didn’t mean I was ready to do anything to fix it. Looking back, I see how my anxiety amplified the very real pressures on me, but I didn’t have that perspective then.

By firelight he read the book he had gotten on his one trip to New York. It was called The Moonstone, written by someone named Wilkie Collins. The pretty girl behind the counter had recommended it to the cowboy as an exciting story. Disappointed the first time he'd cracked it open, over time he had become interested in the characters and the story, finding something beautiful in the language used, which had thrown him harder than a bronc at a rodeo at first.

You’re obviously a city girl. Chickens are egg-laying anarchists or adorably dumb puppies—there’s no in between.

rodeo