Failure was startling, really. So startling that I hardly noticed it at all. — Jane Smiley

What truly horsey girls discover in the end is that boyfriends, husbands, children, and careers are the substitute — for horses.

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.