Quotes from Buck Brannaman

The important thing is to make sure the last word you have with the horse is good for both of you.

As parents, we have a chance when our children are young to turn them into good citizens rather than wait for the government to raise them for us.

When working with a horse, particularly a troubled horse, you'll notice that he will spend a good portion of his time avoiding contact, physical and mental.

If the horse hurts an owner, the animal gets the blame. The BLM also created a program in which prisoners are given the opportunity to work with captive wild horses. They gentle them and get them to the point where they are ridable. This is an excellent idea.

Most of you who are reading this book feel a deep-down ancient bond, a connection between yourself and horses.

Once Buck gets a saddle on a young clinic horse he goes through all the same actions he had previously done with the horse unsaddled. This is to reinforce that the horse has nothing to fear after the saddle is cinched up.

The BLM also created a program in which prisoners are given the opportunity to work with captive wild horses. They gentle them and get them to the point where they are ridable. This is an excellent idea.

I've often told people who ask if there is a God: "Get around enough people with horses and see what happens. See how they survive in spite of all the things that they do, and you'll become a believer!

When riding, ask yourself, 'What will my horse get out of this if I get what I want?' Many times, human nature is to take and to not give anything back.

You can be a leader without being intimidating. The horse can be your partner without being your slave. I'm trying to keep the best part of the horse in there. I'm not trying to take anything away from him.

The horse isn't so different from us. In order to learn, you have to make mistakes. Then you recalibrate, make a decision, try something different, and try again.

A lot of people, they want it all to be fuzzy and warm and cosmic, but it's no different with a horse than with a kid…You can't always be the kid's best friend. First you have to be the parent.

Where you end up your ride on a horse is so important. It's a little bit like when you were young and you were dating—that last two minutes of the date can be a real deal breaker. With these horses it's the same thing…You got to quit on a good note.

Whether it's horses or whatever it is you do, it doesn't become an art until your soul goes into what you do.

When you first get started, you're the only one with a vision. When you become creative and use your imagination, pretty soon the things you imagined, you can get done. If you got a taste of it, if you got a taste of what I'm talking about, you'd rather do that than eat. You couldn't get enough of it. You'll hunger for it the rest of your life.

That absolute pure honesty of the horse, man that's just the greatest thing there is

Whether it's horses or whatever it is you do, it doesn't become an art until your soul goes into what you do.

I take the horsemanship very seriously and I treat it with the same integrity that one would any of the fine arts.

It is all about the quality of the communication, not the quantity.