Elizabeth Letts > Quotes

“Oh, Kansas isn’t the state of Kansas,” Maud said. “Kansas is just the place you’re stuck in, wherever that might be.”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“Magic isn't things materializing out of nowhere, Magic is when a lot of people all believe in the same thing at the same time, and somehow we all escape ourselves a little bit and we meet up somewhere, and just for a moment, we taste the sublime”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“The fight for all women has got to begin with the women closest to you.”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“An old adage says that a good rider can hear his horse speak and a great rider can hear his horse whisper.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: the Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“He had no heart. And, you know, a man who gives up his heart is little better than a tin can...and all the Baum's Castorine in the world couldn't make him better. That's why he was so determined to find one. Sometimes, when the tin woodman leaves home, when he goes on the road, leaving his family to sell his chopped wood, he feels so hollow he bangs on his chest, just to hear the echo inside. That's what it's like to be a man of tin. It's very lonely.”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“Just because you can see a rainbow doesn’t mean you know how to get to the other side.”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“If Maud’s suffragist mother, Matilda, had taught her anything, it was that if you wanted something, you needed to ask for it—or demand it, if necessary.”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“With all of these oohs and ahs, I think we must christen it the Land of Aahs.”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“You always need to fix your own problems. Nobody else is going to fix them for you.”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“It wasn't enough to push open the doors. You had to change minds. How could girls truly make their mark if their role models were houseplants, if their fashions scarcely allowed them to breathe? If any expression of opinion on any subject was considered by young men to be a threat? And even more so, how could they escape the basic fact that no matter how horrid the boys were, the young women still wanted to please them - because what choice had they, really? Where could they go besides back to their own homes, where they would rest under the heavy thumbs of their own mothers, or into the home of a man - with the hopes that this man would be indulgent, like Papa, and not oppressive or cruel, like so many others?”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“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

“death was hard, and sometimes no words could truly provide consolation.”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“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

“Is there a rule against twirling…?” Maud peered at her friend. “Are you a cranky old Methodist?”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“Too much control can stunt a girl, sap her of courage, and render her weak.”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“there were two kinds of people in the world: fans of Oz—those who remembered their childhoods—and those who pretended that they had never even heard of Oz, who believed that adults should put away childish things.”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“In truth, though she longed to fit in, she felt more compelled to be true to herself. If she were to have any hope at love, she’d have to find a man who could love her as she was, even though there seemed little likelihood that such a man existed.”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“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

“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

“was there anyone, big or small, who didn’t know Dorothy and the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion?”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“Was it possible? Was there really somewhere else—somewhere at the far end of the rainbow that was better than this place? She certainly hoped so.”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“Children are a blessing, but God has given us a brain, and we are not prevented from using it to help us organize our lives.”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“And that is the magic of Oz - the magic is that it isn't magic at all”
― elizabeth letts, Finding Dorothy

“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

“Their worlds were full of mystical connections and wild coincidences-beautiful twists of fate that unfolded to give one's life a shape as graceful and parabolic as a perfectly plotted book.”
― Elizabeth Letts, Finding Dorothy

“Living on is the memory of a horse who was hitched to a plow but wanted to soar. Snowman and Harry showed the world how extraordinary the most ordinary among us can be. Never give up, even when the obstacles seem sky high. There is something extraordinary in all of us.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse That Inspired a Nation

“There is one thing no horseman can ever put a price on, and that is heart.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, The Horse That Inspired a Nation

“Just as ballroom dancing and pair skating command partners to work together seamlessly, in the sport of dressage, the rider performers an intricate pas de deux with his partner—a twelve-hundred-pound four-footed beast.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: the Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“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