Max Evans Quotes

As beginning buddies do, Ty had casually mentioned that he'd overheard his grandfather saying to his grandmother, "That Ty is always running for the far horizon, but it keeps moving ahead of him," and Martha had answered as always in his favor, "Yes he is. And someday he'll catch it, and it'll be downhill from then on."

We called them wrecks... And the great mystery in the sky does not allow you to have all that fun unless you have some wrecks.

Jiggs, with his sharp, dark eyes smiling from a weather-seared face, used to say, "I tell you what, son, if a man is real lucky he'll find that what he wants to do is what he likes to do. That is, of course, if he's lucky enough to take the time to discover it."

Emilio said "I'm swearing you to secrecy, amigo, and I feel guilty for telling you... There is a secret room in our basement where both mom and dad go to worship in Jewish. They even light the menorah there during Hanukahh."
Ty made a zipping motion over his mouth and said, "It stays here, amigo."

One from the Heart for... Those deeply loved and influential amigos and amigas who have gone on the "Long Adios", including my mother, Hazel, who taught me to read, and love it, before I started school. Wiley (Big Boy) Hittson, whose brief life of daring courage, total loyalty and sudden shocking death by gunfire inspired my novel TheHighLoCountry. Luz Martinez, the "Santero" who followed me to Taos and carved cedarwood into permanent beauty and dignity. Woody Crumbo, the great pioneer Pottawatomie Indian artist, who became my artistic and spiritual mentor and whose spirit is in every chapter of this book. And finally, our little dog Foxy...

Now, to make horse breaking easy you need two cowboys—one on the bronc and one on a gentle, well-broke horse. This way if the bronc tries to cut your leg off on a barbwire fence or jump off a bluff, your partner can ride in front of him or gather up your hackamore reigns.

I was amazed to discover my award-winning racehorse story, "Showdown at Hollywood Park," was a short sequel to the famed "Seabiscuit" story.
Also I had two more, over 90 percent true, stories that I slightly fictionalized... "My Pardner" was one of these. ...... loved "My Pardner." He optioned it many times over. ...I traded him "My Pardner" for so I could get a Martin Scorsese, ' film made. ...This book brought about the very last conversation I ever had with Peckinpah—two weeks before his untimely death. He was on his way to ... and pressed for time, but promised that on his return he would sign all film rights for "My Pardner" back to me. But... he died, and it never happened.

When I was still a teenager, I acquired a small, well-watered (with springs) ranch in northeastern New Mexico. It was located fourteen miles east of the village of Des Moines—which I would later call "Hi-Lo" in my many writings and a major film. ...In those poor struggling days, coyote hides would bring from five to fifteen dollars—a ton of money at the time.

I had my right hand around that saddle horn like it was the doorknob to heaven's gate, and my right elbow was crimped down over my hipbone like a vise. I was pulling on the them hackamore reigns like I was dragging a pot of gold out of a deep well. But it just didn't do any good. That son of a... bogged his head and jumped way off toward the Arizona border and came down hard on his front legs, driving them in the ground plumb to bedrock, the way it felt to me. The next jump was just as high and just as long, but when he drove into the ground again he was headed for the Texas border, and in between that old roan horse was sure tearing hell out of New Mexico.

I left the heart of the Hi-Lo country, and went to Taos. I bought some sub-irrigated land and a house and moved there amongst the founders and old masters of the famed art colony. I also obtained my first Taos horse, Brownie. ...for the thiry dollars I paid Horse Thief Shorty for him, he turned out to be quite a buy. ...Brownie was pretty darn good at everyting, outstanding at none, but a loyal friend all the way. A partner. ...I rank him pretty high for that priceless underrated loyalty. ...I would ride him for pure pleasure. We would move across the great sagebrush desert on top of the west mesa where the Indians held their annual, ancient horseback rabbit hunt.

The beast of war belches and passes almost endless odors. There is the acrid smell of freshly detonated gunpowder and burnt steel. There is the sweet scent of newly freed blood misting above the dead, dying, and mutilated bodies, little red streams forming pools that begin to turn brownish as they seep into the bruised earth. There is a special combined smell when a shell penetrates, explodes, and sets fire to a tank—a mixture of steel, powder, human flesh, bone, and blood, gasoline and oil, clothing, and stained and torn family photos.
There is the unforgettable stench of bodies long past the first discovery of flies. This is a forever odor. So is the scent of villages, towns, and cities burning.

The story of Silver City Millie is the story of one woman's personal tragedies and triumphs as an orphan, a Harvey Girl waitress on the Santa Fe railroad, a prostitute with innumerable paramours, and a highly successful bordello businesswoman. Millie broke the mold in so many ways, and yet her life story of survival was not unlike that of thousands of women who went West...

Several times, Emilio had taken Ty to the mountains to fish for trout. ...The gurgling, forever-twisting little snowmelts coursing, playing, singing over millions of differently shaped stones deeply fascinated a young man from the dry, flat plains of Lea County. It was a gift of beauty sparkling in the sunlight to out glimmer all the diamonds in the world. ...He would have wagered on it. Emilio had introduced him to a ceaseless wonder. ...and the fishing was almost as exciting. He could never stop marveling that these small streams could be home to foot-long brown and rainbow trout.

For me, the code of the West is simple. You never let a friend down... ever. And you don't go after your enemies if they leave you alone.
You can live a long time on those two things.

I could see... that there was healed-over spur marks in that old pony's shoulder. That could mean just one thing. Trouble. I had worked for outfits that gave spoiled horses like that one away just to keep from crippling up good cowboys.