Quotes from The Horse Whisperer

Nicholas Evans ·  451 pages

Rating: (45.1K votes)


“I guess that’s all forever is...Just one long trail of nows. And I guess all you can do is try and live one now at a time without getting too worked up about the last now or the next now.”
― Nicholas Evans, quote from The Horse Whisperer


“She had seemed to need something from him that he hadn’t been able to give...at last he realized that what she had needed from him was need itself. That he should need her as she needed him.”
― Nicholas Evans, quote from The Horse Whisperer


“It was in America that horses first roamed. A million years before the birth of man, they grazed the vast plains of wiry grass and crossed to other continents over bridges of rock soon severed by retreating ice. They first knew man as the hunted knows the hunter, for long before he saw them as a means to killing other beasts, man killed them for their meat.

Paintings on the walls of caves showed how. Lions and bears would turn and fight and that was the moment men speared them. But the horse was a creature of flight not fight and, with a simple deadly logic, the hunter used flight to destroy it. Whole herds were driven hurtling headlong to their deaths from the tops of cliffs. Deposits of their broken bones bore testimony. And though later he came pretending friendship, the alliance with man would ever be but fragile, for the fear he'd struck into their hearts was too deep to be dislodged.

Since that neolithic moment when first a horse was haltered, there were those among men who understood this.

They could see into the creature's soul and soothe the wounds they found there. Often they were seen as witches and perhaps they were. Some wrought their magic with the bleached bones of toads, plucked from moonlit streams. Others, it was said, could with but a glance root the hooves of a working team to the earth they plowed. There were gypsies and showmen, shamans and charlatans. And those who truly had the gift were wont to guard it wisely, for it was said that he who drove the devil out, might also drive him in. The owner of a horse you calmed might shake your hand then dance around the flames while they burned you in the village square.

For secrets uttered softly into pricked and troubles ears, these men were known as Whisperers.”
― Nicholas Evans, quote from The Horse Whisperer


“Knowing is the easy part; saying it out loud is the hard part.”
― Nicholas Evans, quote from The Horse Whisperer


“But you see Annie, where there's pain, there's still feeling and where there's feeling, there's hope.”
― Nicholas Evans, quote from The Horse Whisperer



“Her only shame was that she felt none.”
― Nicholas Evans, quote from The Horse Whisperer


“I guess that's all forever is. Just one big long trail of nows. And I guess all you can do is try and live one now at a time without getting too worked up about the last now or the next now.”
― Nicholas Evans, quote from The Horse Whisperer


“Annie looked into his eyes with their blood-crazed whites and for the first time in her life knew how one might come to believe in the devil.”
― Nicholas Evans, quote from The Horse Whisperer


“They looked at each other and some refraction of the pain in Tom's heart must have shown in his eyes.

Frank said, 'In pretty deep, huh?'

'About as deep as it gets.”
― Nicholas Evans, quote from The Horse Whisperer


“It was, she believed, a simple and unassailable fact of life that if a woman went to epic lengths to throw herself on the mercy of a man, the man would not, could not, refuse.”
― Nicholas Evans, quote from The Horse Whisperer



“I guess that’s all forever is,’ his father replied. ‘Just one long trail of nows. And I guess all you can do is try and live one now at a time without getting too worked up about the last now or the next now.”
― Nicholas Evans, quote from The Horse Whisperer


About the author

Nicholas Evans
Born place: in Worcestershire, The United Kingdom
Born date July 26, 1950
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Popular quotes

“Tam między gałązkami coś tkwiło — coś sterczało odrębnego i obcego, choć niewyraźnego… i temu przyglądał się też mój kompan.
— Wróbel.
— Acha.
Był to wróbel. Wróbel wisiał na drucie. Powieszony. Z przechylonym łebkiem i rozwartym dzióbkiem. Wisiał na kawałku cienkiego drutu, zahaczonego o gałąź.
Szczególne. Powieszony ptak. Powieszony wróbel. Ta ekscentryczność krzyczała tutaj wielkim głosem i wskazywała na rękę ludzką, która wdarła się w gąszcz — ale kto? Kto powiesił, po co, jaki mógł być powód?… myślałem w gmatwaninie, w tym rozrośnięciu obfitującym w milion kombinacji, a trzęsąca jazda koleją, noc hucząca pociągiem, niewyspanie, powietrze, słońce, marsz tutaj z tym Fuksem i Jasia, matka, chryja z listem, moje „zamrażanie” starego, Roman, zresztą i kłopoty Fuksa z szefem w biurze (o których opowiadał), koleiny, grudy, obcasy, nogawki, kamyczki, liście, wszystko w ogóle przypadło naraz do tego wróbla, jak tłum na kolanach, a on zakrólował, ekscentryk… i królował w
tym zakątku.
— Kto by go mógł powiesić?
— Jakiś dzieciak.
— Nie. Za wysoko.
— Chodźmy.
Ale nie ruszał się. Wróbel wisiał. Ziemia była goła, ale miejscami nachodziła ją trawa krótka, rzadka, walało się tu sporo rzeczy, kawałek zgiętej blachy, patyk, drugi patyk,
tektura podarta, patyczek, był też żuk, mrówka, druga mrówka, robak nieznany, szczapa i tak dalej i dalej, aż ku zaroślom u korzeni krzaków — on przyglądał się temu, podobnie jak ja.
— Chodźmy. Ale jeszcze stał, patrzył, wróbel wisiał, ja stałem, patrzyłem. —
Chodźmy. — Chodźmy. Nie ruszaliśmy się jednak, może dlatego, że już za długo tu
staliśmy i upłynął moment stosowny do odejścia… a teraz to stawało się już cięższe, bardziej nieporęczne… my z tym wróblem, powieszonym w krzakach… i zamajaczyło mi się coś w rodzaju naruszenia proporcji, czy nietaktu, niestosowności z naszej strony…
byłem śpiący.
— No, w drogę! — powiedziałem i odeszliśmy… pozostawiając w krzakach wróbla, samego.”
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