Tim Cope Quotes

Tim Cope

Profession : Author

Birth : December 7, 1978

Had I not stepped into the saddle in the first place, entire cultures, histories, and most importantly, profound connections with people and animals whom I now counted as my friends would have otherwise passed by, invisible.

Tim Cope

Perhaps most important for nomads was the belief in the symbiosis that existed between wolf and humans on the steppe. Wolves were an integral part of keeping the balance of nature, ensuring that plagues of rabbits and rodents didn't break out, which in turn protected the all-important pasture for the nomads' herds.

Tim Cope

Reflective of the deep sense of gratitude and respect Mongolians reserved for wolves, there was a belief that only through wolves could the spirit of a deceased human be set free to go to Heaven.

Tim Cope

When you hear that howl alone at night in the forest, it's one of the most frightening sounds you'll ever hear.

Tim Cope

In Kazakhstan, once you're someone's guest, it's really hard to get away - everyone wants you to stay. They believe that if you invite a guest, luck will fly into your house.

Tim Cope

Exchanging gifts is an important thing in the steppe culture, a way for them to feel you have become a part of their lives.

Tim Cope

In wider spaces, people bearing historical grudges with each other were separated by the muting qualities of distance.

Tim Cope

Bakhchisaray was formerly the capital of the Crimean khanate and once an important crossroad of the Silk Road, where traders met from across the Black Sea, the steppes of Central Asia, Russia, and eastern Europe.

Tim Cope

In 1736, Bakhchisaray had been burned to the ground by the Russians, and when Catherine II's army completed the conquest of the peninsula in 1783, the last khan, Sahin Giray, took refuge in Turkey, where he was eventually executed.

Tim Cope

Gradually, I came to know my horses intimately. You go through every mood they experience and come to view the world much like a horse.

Tim Cope

I wanted to know what it would be like to get on a horse and ride all the way west to Europe and take a look back at my own culture through the eyes of a nomad.

Tim Cope

I think in our society we too often choose the people we associate with based on our own hasty judgments.

Tim Cope

Many times, I thought the sat-phone was just a hindrance because it can become a crutch. You can call someone in Australia or Europe and talk about what you're going through, but it doesn't actually help. Sat-phones and GPS can't show you where the grass or the wells are.

Tim Cope

In two and a half years' trekking across central Asia, I'd become attuned to the late autumn conditions when the hazards of winter can blow in under the cover of darkness.

Tim Cope

Learning of my father's passing at age 55 not only shattered the world, far from home, that had become my reality, but catapulted my childhood and relationship with family - which had felt like another lifetime - into the present.

Tim Cope

From the rugged cliffs of Cape Liptrap peninsula jutting bravely into the swells of Bass Strait, the coast arcs southeast, hugging the waters of Waratah Bay with sweeping flat lines of fine pale sand and knotty scrub.

Tim Cope

My dream was to ride a horse from Mongolia to Hungary, 10,000 km across the great Eurasian Steppe, and in doing so, come to understand the nomadic cultures that have presided there for thousands of years.

Tim Cope

I have dreamt of being an author since the age of 14, and writing about my experiences has always been a part of digesting an experience and sharing it with others.

Tim Cope

For the traveller, Kazakhstan offers more than just a staging post for the Silk Road, as is often perceived, and there is more than just steppe.

Tim Cope

If you take the time to visit rural regions, where horsemen ride by and yurts are set up in summer meadows, you will come to know that the Kazak culture lives on.

Tim Cope