there really isn't much truth in my saying

“And watching Monte ride off through the long grains, I thought about the way we invent ourselves through our stories, and in a similar way, how the stories we tell put walls around our lives. And I think that may be true about cowboys. That there really isn’t much truth in my saying cowboys are my weakness; maybe, after all this time, it’s just something I’ve learned to say.
…I listened to country music the whole way to Cody, Wyoming. The men in the songs were all either brutal or inexpressive and always sorry later. The women were victims, every last one. I started to think about coming back to the ranch to visit Monte, about another night dancing, about another night wanting the impossible love of a country song, and I thought:
This is not my happy ending.
This is not my story.”

-pam houston, “cowboys are my weakness”