Quotes about riding (642 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride.”

Volodymyr Zelensky (1978) 6th President of Ukraine

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/26/europe/ukraine-zelensky-evacuation-intl/index.html

Fight

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Variant: Everyone wants to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.

For Wife , love , Happy , Family

“When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either.”

Jesse Owens (1913–1980) American track and field athlete

As quoted in "Owens pierced a myth" http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016393.html (2005), by Larry Schwartz, ESPN SportsCentury

Housing , Country

“If the ride is more fly, you must buy”

Snoop Dogg (1971) American rapper, singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Flying

“Remember the mind is your best muscle …BIG ARMS can move rocks, but BIG WORDS can move mountains… Ride the brain train for success….”

Sylvester Stallone (1946) American actor, screenwriter, and film director

http://twitter.com/TheSlyStallone/status/27158992333

Mountain , Success , Training

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to his son Eduard (5 February 1930), as quoted in Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), p. 367
1930s

Motivational , Inspirational , Deep , Success

“You know it's never fifty-fifty in a marriage. It's always seventy-thirty, or sixty-forty. Someone falls in love first. Someone puts someone else up on a pedestal. Someone works very hard to keep things rolling smoothly; someone else sails along for the ride.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Mercy (1996)

Love , Marriage

“Communication is a skill that you can learn. It's like riding a bicycle or typing.
If you're willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of very part of your life.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Life , Communication , Learning , Parting

“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride… and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well… maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”

Hunter S. Thompson book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.”

W.B. Yeats The Land of Heart's Desire

Source: The Land of Heart's Desire

World , Mountain , Dance

“I think the thing to do is to enjoy the ride while you're on it.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Thinking

“I once took a ride to the beach in L. A., and all along the shore there were all these so-called jazz places. And I saw these college guys and session players playing this fusion Muzak stuff. It was just a lot of notes, and the more notes they played, the more it kept them from expressing anything. So I came back home and got out my Zeppelin albums.”

Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter

О музыке

Guy , Home

“Paul's last words to Linda: "You're up on your beautiful Appaloosa stallion. It's a fine spring day. We're riding through the woods. The bluebells are all out, and the sky is clear-blue".”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

I had barely got to the end of the sentence when she closed her eyes and gently slipped away. She was unique, and the world is a better place for having known her. I love you, Linda. note: Last words to his wife, Linda, as recounted by McCartney in a statement released to the press three days after her death
Source: as quoted in "Linda's Death 'Heartbreak' for McCartney" https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=99480655 by Emma Ross, Tucson Citizen (April 21, 1998), p. B1

Beauty , Spring

“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

Women , World , Feeling , Thinking

“If her rump were any stiffer, she'd break it every time she rides', I thought to Pounce.
'If she fell on the steps, they would never be able to put her together again', he replied.”

Tamora Pierce book Mastiff

Source: Mastiff

Time

“There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

Star , Night

“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, “Wow what a ride!”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Variant: Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!
Source: The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

Life

“your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”

Anthony Bourdain book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Source: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“Come on, big guy. Let's go for a ride. Let's cruise.”

Stephen King book Christine

Christine

Guy

“When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

Hope , Appearance

“Medicine is a thankless profession. When you get paid by the rich, you feel like a flunky, by the poor like a thief. How can you take a fee from people who can’t afford to eat or go to the movies? Especially when they’re at their last gasp. It’s not easy. You let it ride. You get soft-hearted. And your ship goes down.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night

People , Feeling , Heart

“I like to ride in trains too much. You never get to sit next to the window anymore when you're married.”

Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey

Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)

Training

“Chiefly I remember the horsy smells, the quavering bugle-calls (all our buglers were amateurs--I first learned the Spanish bugle-calls by listening to them outside the Fascist lines), the tramp-tramp of hobnailed boots in the barrack yard, the long morning parades in the wintry sunshine, the wild games of football, fifty a side, in the gravelled riding--school.”

George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia (1938)

School , Game , Learning , Football

“Never stand when you can sit; never walk when you can ride; never Push when you can Pull.”

Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) Canadian eductor

Source: The Peter Principle (1969), p. 63

“The trouble with trouble was that trouble was looking for Coldwater Gatling. They don't like Texas Rangers down in Arizona, consequently Coldwater Gatling figured shoot first and find out who you killed afterwards. That's how they did it in the Lone Star State where men were men and the women didn't mind cooking for hard-riding straight-shooting people like Coldwater Gatling, the toughest man in leather they had down there.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Women , Men , People , Star

“In riding to the hounds, in falconry,
In love or war," as anyone will tell you,
"For one brief joy a hundred woes.”

Francois Villon book Le Testament

"De chiens, d'oyseaulx, d'armes, d'amous,"
Chascun le dit a la vollee,
"Pour une joye cent doulours."
Source: Le Grand Testament (The Great Testament) (1461), Line 622.

Love , War , Joy

“Life is like a long ride to nowhere in particular.”

Nikki Sixx (1958) American musician

Source: The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star

Life

“I wonder, sometimes, whether men and women in fact are capable of learning from history--whether we progress from one stage to the next in an upward course or whether we just ride the cycles of boom and bust, war and peace, ascent and decline.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Women , Men , War , Peace

“I learned to create a little more space between my thoughts and actions—actually between my feelings and reactions. This is extremely important; without it, life can be a real roller coaster ride.”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Source: Midnights with the Mystic

Life , Feeling , Learning

“All male friendships are essentially quixotic: they last only so long as each man is willing to polish the shaving-bowl helmet, climb on his donkey, and ride off after the other in pursuit of illusive glory and questionable adventure.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Source: Wonder Boys

Friendship , Question

“The possibility of physical and mental collapse is now very real. No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

Hunter S. Thompson book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“In my schoolboy reveries, we were always two fugitives riding on the spine of a book, eager to escape into worlds of fiction and secondhand dreams.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Books , World , Dreams

“God put us here on this carnival ride, we close our eyes never knowing where it will take us next.”

Carrie Underwood (1983) American country music singer

From the booklet of Carnival Ride.

God

“They told me to take a streetcar named Desire and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at - Elysian Fields!”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

“She rides as a man, goes unveiled as a man, fights as a man. Let her prove herself worthy as a man, worthy of her weapons and of our friendship.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

Friendship , Fight

“I need to know that wherever I end up, in the stars or in the gutter, you’re along for the ride.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Star

“The only thing that would make her jealous would be if I led a parade riding a unicorn while ballerinas sang love songs.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Grip of the Shadow Plague

Love

“You ride as a man, fight as a man, and you think as a man-"
"I think as a human being," she retorted hotly. "Men don't think any differently from women- they just make more noise about being able to.”

Tamora Pierce The Woman Who Rides Like a Man

Source: The Woman Who Rides Like a Man

Women , Men , Thinking , Fight

“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

Women , World , Thinking , Time

“I sit, I read, I listen to music, I go or a walk, I ride to Prospect Park and sit under the Willow Tree, I remember, I forget, I look at pictures, I do, I do, I do… or I don't, but its peaceful… only me… no worries.”

Hubert Selby Jr. (1928–2004) American writer

Peace , Music , Tree , Reading

“Old age is the lubricant of belief. When death knocks at the door, skepticism flies out the window. A serious cardiovascular fright and a person will even believe in Little Red Riding Hood.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

Death , Age , Personality

“It's just a ride.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

“The next day, Greg is so large that he cannot even ride the car to school because he can't fit in the car. His parents believe this to have been caused by a food allergy and resolve to take him to the doctor later.”

R.L. Stine book Say Cheese and Die!

Source: Say Cheese and Die!

School , Food , Cars , Parent

“There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

The Russian Revolution (1930)

Cars , Question , Speed , Training

“The story of how anti-Hindu laws were enacted… is long. In summary form, it consists of 1) banishing Brahmins on pain of being made prisoners on the galleys; 2) confiscating the properties of those Hindus who sent their families to neighbouring lands for fear of conversion; 3) prohibiting the performance of Hindu rites and ceremonies; 4) banning Hindu priests and preachers from doing their religious duties; 5) compelling Hindus to attend church services and listen to Christian doctrines; 6) depriving Hindus of their traditional rights and privileges in village communities; 7) forcing the baptism of Hindu orphans; and 8) ordering Hindus not to ride on horseback or in palanquins. The laws were so designed as to humiliate the Hindus in every conceivable manner… Missionary records, however, refer to many famous Hindu temples being converted into churches at these places… Even private temples in Hindu homes were prohibited and “transgressors” were severely punished…”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

St. Francis Xavier: The man and his mission. 1985.

Pain , Fear , Family , Law

“I don't take off my helmet a lot of the time - that's one of the really good things about riding a bike. I can go all over the place and no one knows who I am.”

Hugh Laurie (1959) British actor, comedian, writer, musician and director

Source: [2002-06-13, http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-920254-details/A+brighter+life+for+Hugh+Laurie/article.do;jsessionid=KnM3FNTSkpv0R3P22WrQBPZQ00jxPTkDtG2htfqq0LvwTtnLx4by!-81402767, A brighter life for Hugh Laurie, thisislondon.co.uk from the Evening Standard, 2006-08-21]

Time

“Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare
Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery
Can leave the mother, murdered at her door,
To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

I, st. 4
The Tower (1928), Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1547/

Sleep

“Honestly, I've been making up everything as I go. When you're riding the ice pony, you see a lot of talking frogs.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

[The New York Times, October 24, 2015, Jim Henson, Puppeteer, Dies; The Muppets' Creator Was 53, Eleanor, Blau, May 17, 1990, http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/17/obituaries/jim-henson-puppeteer-dies-the-muppets-creator-was-53.html?pagewanted=all]

“For decades, this vision stood in sharp contrast to life on the other side of an Iron Curtain. For decades, a contest was waged, and ultimately that contest was won -- not by tanks or missiles, but because our ideals stirred the hearts of Hungarians who sparked a revolution; Poles in their shipyards who stood in Solidarity; Czechs who waged a Velvet Revolution without firing a shot; and East Berliners who marched past the guards and finally tore down that wall. Today, what would have seemed impossible in the trenches of Flanders, the rubble of Berlin, or a dissident’s prison cell -- that reality is taken for granted. A Germany unified. The nations of Central and Eastern Europe welcomed into the family of democracies. Here in this country, once the battleground of Europe, we meet in the hub of a Union that brings together age-old adversaries in peace and cooperation. The people of Europe, hundreds of millions of citizens -- east, west, north, south -- are more secure and more prosperous because we stood together for the ideals we share. And this story of human progress was by no means limited to Europe. Indeed, the ideals that came to define our alliance also inspired movements across the globe among those very people, ironically, who had too often been denied their full rights by Western powers. After the Second World War, people from Africa to India threw off the yoke of colonialism to secure their independence. In the United States, citizens took freedom rides and endured beatings to put an end to segregation and to secure their civil rights. As the Iron Curtain fell here in Europe, the iron fist of apartheid was unclenched, and Nelson Mandela emerged upright, proud, from prison to lead a multiracial democracy. Latin American nations rejected dictatorship and built new democracies, and Asian nations showed that development and democracy could go hand in hand.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)

Life , War , People , Age

“Sing, riding's a joy! For me I ride.”

Robert Browning Men and Women

Men and Women (1855), The last Ride together, vii.

Singing , Joy

“A lot has changed, El Paso, a lot has changed. One thing's for sure, I'm still the fluffy guy. And I say "fluffy" because that is the politically correct term, for those of you who don't remember I used to say that there were Five Levels of Fatness. Reason why I say "Used to say" is because now there are six! Uh-huh, I met the new one in Las Cruces. The original five levels are Big, Healthy, Husky, Fluffy, and DAMN! People ask, "What could be bigger than DAMN!" The new level's called "OH HELL NO!" What's the difference? You're still willing to work with level five. Example, if you're on an elevator and you're with your friend and this really big guy gets on and you and your friend look at each other and you're like, "DAAAMN!" But you still let the big guy ride your elevator. That's the difference. Level six, you see walking towards your elevator, [Deep growling noise] [Pretends to be a shocked passenger and starts pushing the "close door" button. ] "OH HELL NO!" [Growl] "NO!!" [Growl] "NO!!" [Pretends to kick the fat man out] That's the difference. The guy that I met was six foot eight, six hundred and fourteen pounds. Uh-huh, OH HELL NO!! And he was offended at my show. Not by anything that I said, but because of the fact that now at the shows I started selling T-shirts and apparently, I didn't have his size. Keep in mind, I go all the way up to 5X on the T-shirts and he was like, [Deep growling voice] "You don't have my size." I was like, "Dude, I didn't know they MADE you! I have up to 5X, I don't have [Growl] X!"”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

A picture of a dinosaur on the back of the tag, you know?
I'm Not Fat, I'm Fluffy (2009)

People , Way , Guy , Hell

“It's not about how you look, it's about how you feel. I can do more with ease and grace now at 52 than I could when I was 20. I can ride my bike 60 miles, I can handle stress, I have good muscle tone. That's what it's about. Not about being thin but about being healthy”

Jane Fonda (1937) American actress and activist

Telephone interview quoted by Carol Krucoff. Why Jane's Fonda Exercise;Stress-Busting Workouts and Other News About Staying in Shape. Washington Post, 13 March 1990

Feeling

“Madness rides the star-wind… claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses… dripping death astride a bacchanale of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial…”

H.P. Lovecraft book The Hound

"The Hound" Written September 1922, published February 1924 in Weird Tales, 3, No. 2, 50–52, 78
Fiction

Death , Star , Madness

“Saddle the Hippogriffs, ye Muses nine,
And straight we'll ride to the land of old Romance.”

Christoph Martin Wieland book Oberon

Noch einmahl sattelt mir den Hippogryfen, ihr Musen,
Zum Ritt ins alte romantische Land!
Oberon, Song 1, st. 1 (1780) http://www.archive.org/stream/oberon02187gut/7ober10.txt; translation from Frederick Metcalfe History of German Literature (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans and Roberts, 1858) p. 109.

“What interested me was how much of a departure this was in that you have three interesting, across the generations, female characters, literally riding alongside the male characters. Also the emotional and psychological depth of the characters was, for me, a lot richer than I've seen in a western. But never once did it sacrifice the thrill of the chase. So it was a journey into the unknown for me.”

Cate Blanchett (1969) Australian actress

Cate Blanchett, The Missing interview, BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2004/02/16/cate_blanchett_the_missing_interview.shtml,

Departure

“An unlucky rich man is more capable of satisfying his desires and of riding out disaster when it strikes, but a lucky man is better off than him…He is the one who deserves to be described as happy. But until he is dead, you had better refrain from calling him happy, and just call him fortunate.”

Solón (-638–-558 BC) Athenian legislator

Herodotus (trans. Robin Waterfield) The Histories Bk. 1, ch. 32, pp. 15-16.

Dead , Happiness

“At night the sea is very loud,
And voices ride the tide.
At another time, in another place,
Beneath the silent moon,
We laughed together.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Cauldron (2007), Chapter 30 (p. 279)

Time , Sea , Night

“"Grant me, ye gods, but one certainty," runs Parmenides' prayer, "and if it be but a log's breadth on which to lie. on which to ride upon the sea of uncertainty. Take away everything that comes-to-be, everything lush, colorful, blossoming, illusory, everything that charms and is alive. Take all these for yourselves and grant me but the one and only, poor empty certainty.””

Friedrich Nietzsche book Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks

Source: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (posthumous), p. 81

God , Lie , Color , Sea

“If one assumes, however, that the PGA TOUR has some legal obligation to play classic, Platonic golf—and if one assumes the correctness of all the other wrong turns the Court has made to get to this point—then we Justices must confront what is indeed an awesome responsibility. It has been rendered the solemn duty of the Supreme Court of the United States, laid upon it by Congress in pursuance of the Federal Government's power [t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, to decide What Is Golf. I am sure that the Framers of the Constitution, aware of the 1457 edict of King James II of Scotland prohibiting golf because it interfered with the practice of archery, fully expected that sooner or later the paths of golf and government, the law and the links, would once again cross, and that the judges of this august Court would some day have to wrestle with that age-old jurisprudential question, for which their years of study in the law have so well prepared them: Is someone riding around a golf course from shot to shot really a golfer? The answer, we learn, is yes. The Court ultimately concludes, and it will henceforth be the Law of the Land, that walking is not a fundamental aspect of golf.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin, 532 U.S. 661 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=00-24 (2001) (dissenting).
2000s

Age , Justice , Law , Art

“Our best corporate citizens are also our most creative… Sixty years ago, when the Russians beat us into space, we didn’t deny Sputnik was up there. We didn't argue about the science, or shrink our research and development budget. We built a space program almost overnight, and twelve years later, we were walking on the moon. That spirit of discovery is in our DNA. We're Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers and George Washington Carver. We're Grace Hopper and Katherine Johnson and Sally Ride. We're every immigrant and entrepreneur from Boston to Austin to Silicon Valley racing to shape a better world. And over the past seven years, we've nurtured that spirit.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, State of the Union address (January 2016)

World , Science , Past

“The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, Citizenship in a Republic (1910)

Men , Soul , History

“But Florentine was still riding the crest of her great wave…When it lifted her high she had to hold her breath. How could she ever again be bothered by these petty everyday cares? Would she ever again feel the old anxiety on hearing these dreadful midnight confidences, in the silence heavy with breathing? The wave that bore her was like a long, slow swell. There were hollows into which she sank with all her thoughts, all her willpower, where she was no more than a wing, a feather, a fringe, borne off ever faster, ever faster…He kissed me on the cheeks. On the eyes! "What's going to happen to us, Florentine? If your father's gone and lost his job again, we'll have to live on what you can give us, poor Florentine. We can always go back on relief…”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 85

Feeling , Confidence , Kiss , Silence

“You can only learn so much by reading. You cannot learn to ride a bicycle by reading a book.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Books , Learning , Reading

“I saw myself founding a religion, marching into Asia riding an elephant, a turban on my head and in my hand the new Koran that I would have composed to suit my needs.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

As quoted in The British in Egypt‎ (1971) by Peter Mansfield, p. 1
Attributed

Religion

“Greetings from Fairbanks! This is the last you shall hear from me Wayne. Arrived here 2 days ago. It was very difficult to catch rides in the Yukon Territory, but I finally got here. Please return all mail I receive to the sender. It might be a very long time before I return South. If this adventure proves fatal and you don't ever hear from me again I want you to know your [sic] a great man. I now walk into the wild. Alex.”

Christopher McCandless (1968–1992) American hiker and explorer

In a postcard sent to Wayne Westerberg, April 27, 1992.
Source: Mary Ellen Barnes (ed.). Back to the Wild (2nd ed.). Twin Star Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0-9833955-0-8. (pp. 172-173)

Time

““Look,” said Rumfoord, “life for a punctual person is like a roller coaster.” He turned to shiver his hands in her face. “All kinds of things are going to happen to you! Sure,” he said, “I can see the whole roller coaster you’re on. And sure—I could give you a piece of paper that would tell you about every dip and turn, warn you about every bogeyman that was going to pop out at you in the tunnels. But that wouldn’t help you any.”
“I don’t see why not,” said Beatrice.
“Because you’d still have to take the roller-coaster ride,” said Rumfoord. “I didn’t design the roller coaster, I don’t own it, and I don’t say who rides and who doesn’t. I just know what it’s shaped like.”

Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 2 “Cheers in the Wirehouse” (pp. 57-58)

Life , Help , Personality

“Well she's walking through the clouds
With a circus mind, that's running round.
Butterflies and Zebras, and moonbeams, and fairytales-
That's all she ever thinks about. Riding with the wind.”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

Little Wing
Song lyrics, Axis: Bold as Love (1967)

Fairytale , Thinking

“Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied, —
"If you seek for Eldorado!”

Edgar Allan Poe Eldorado

"Eldorado", st. 4.

Mountain

“Getting crazy on the Waltzers, but it's the life that I choose.
Sing about the sixblade, sing about the switchback and a torture tattoo.
And I been riding on a ghost train where the cars they scream and slam,
And I don't know where I'll be tonight but I'd always tell you where I am.”

Mark Knopfler (1949) English guitarist

Tunnel of Love, written with Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II
Song lyrics, Making Movies (1980)

Life , Cars , Singing , Tattoo

“It should not surprise Muslims if doubts were entertained about their loyalty. They could not ride on two horses.”

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1875–1950) Indian freedom fighter who forged united India

Patel complaining about the Indian Muslims' silence over Kashmir in a speech in Lucknow in 1948, quoted in B.D. Graham: Hindu Nationalism and quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p.349

Horse , Loyalty

“Beneath our feet and o'er our head
Is equal warning given:
Beneath us lie the countless dead,
Above us is the heaven! Death rides on every passing breeze,
And lurks in every flower;
Each season has its own disease,
Its peril every hour.”

Reginald Heber (1783–1826) English clergyman

"At a Funeral", No. I.
need further publication dates

Death , Lie , Disease , Flowers

“I wanna fly, I wanna fly
I said I want my chariot to pick me up
And take me brother for a ride.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Spaceship. The College Dropout (2004)
Bible References

Flying

“He that thinks diversion may not lie in hard and painful labour, forgets the early rising, hard riding, heat, cold and hunger of huntsmen, which is yet known to be the constant recreation of men of the greatest condition.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 206
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Men , Hunger , Pain , Lie

“With effort, we can roll back poverty and the roadblocks to opportunity. Americans don’t accept a free ride for anybody, nor do we believe in equality of outcomes. But we do expect equal opportunity.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Bloody Sunday Speech (March 2015)
Context: With effort, we can roll back poverty and the roadblocks to opportunity. Americans don’t accept a free ride for anybody, nor do we believe in equality of outcomes. But we do expect equal opportunity. And if we really mean it, if we’re not just giving lip service to it, but if we really mean it and are willing to sacrifice for it, then, yes, we can make sure every child gets an education suitable to this new century, one that expands imaginations and lifts sights and gives those children the skills they need. We can make sure every person willing to work has the dignity of a job, and a fair wage, and a real voice, and sturdier rungs on that ladder into the middle class. And with effort, we can protect the foundation stone of our democracy for which so many marched across this bridge –- and that is the right to vote.

Effort

“Who rides, so late, through night and wind?
It is the father with his child.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Der Erlkönig

Der Erlkönig (1782)
Context: Who rides, so late, through night and wind?
It is the father with his child.
He holds the boy in the crook of his arm
He holds him safe, he keeps him warm.

Night

“while the shadows like long fingers
over the haystacks that sweep past
keep shocking him
because he is riding backwards.”

Anne Carson (1950) Canadian poet

"Father’s Old Blue Cardigan", Men in the Off Hours, Knopf (New York, NY), 2000.

Past

“He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine.”

Arthur Miller book Death of a Salesman

Charley
Death of a Salesman (1949)
Context: Nobody dast blame this man. Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back — that's an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you're finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.

Smile , Way

“These people –- our neighbors, our classmates, our friends –- they did not come here in search of a free ride or an easy life. They came to work, and study, and serve in our military, and above all, contribute to America’s success.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Address to the Nation on Immigration (November 2014)
Context: Over the past few years, I have seen the determination of immigrant fathers who worked two or three jobs without taking a dime from the government, and at risk any moment of losing it all, just to build a better life for their kids. I’ve seen the heartbreak and anxiety of children whose mothers might be taken away from them just because they didn’t have the right papers. I’ve seen the courage of students who, except for the circumstances of their birth, are as American as Malia or Sasha; students who bravely come out as undocumented in hopes they could make a difference in the country they love. These people –- our neighbors, our classmates, our friends –- they did not come here in search of a free ride or an easy life. They came to work, and study, and serve in our military, and above all, contribute to America’s success.

Life , People , Search , Study