Lonesome Dove Quotes

“Talk’s the way to kill it. Anything gets boring if you talk about it enough, even death.”

“The older the violin, the sweeter the music.”

“If you want one thing too much it’s likely to be a disappointment. The healthy way is to learn to like the everyday things, like soft beds and buttermilk—and feisty gentlemen.”

“I figured out why you and me get along so well. You know more than you say and I say more than I know. That means we’re a perfect match, as long as we don’t hang around one another more than an hour at a stretch.”

“‘Ride with an outlaw, die with him,’ [Gus] added. ‘I admit it’s a harsh code. But you rode on the other side long enough to know how it works. I’m sorry you crossed the line, though.‘”

“Uva uvam vivendo varia fit.”

“They were people of the horse, not of the town; in that they were more like the Comanches than Call would ever have admitted.”

“It was puzzling that such a muddy little river like the Rio Grande should make such a difference in terms of what was lawful and what not.”

“‘Well, Call, I guess they forgot us, like they forgot the Alamo,’ Augustus said. ‘Why wouldn’t they?’ Call asked. ‘We ain’t been around.’ ‘That ain’t the reason—the reason is we didn’t die.‘”

“‘It ain’t dying I’m talking about, it’s living,’ Augustus said. ‘I doubt it matters where you die, but it matters where you live.‘”

“‘Well, you’re horse thieves, and that’s a sin in my book,’ Call said. ‘Where do you people come from?‘”

″[Gus] felt such love for Lorie that even speaking her name caused him to feel weak sometimes.”

″‘I’m as American as the next,’ [Call] said, taking his hat and picking up his rifle. ‘You was born in Scotland,’ Augustus reminded him.”

“I want to be buried in Clara’s Orchard . . . Yes, that’s my favor to you. It’s the kind of job you was made for, that nobody else could do or even try . . .”

“I ain’t kin to nobody in this world...I don’t want to be. I won’t be.”

“Men who didn’t know how to get on and off a horse would not be much use around a cow outfit.”

“It was an odd thing, but true, that the death of an enemy could affect you as much almost as much as the death of a friend.”

“Call’s gone to round up a dern bunch of cowboys so we can head out for Montana with a dern bunch of cows and suffer for the rest of our lives.”

“When Augustus came out on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake—not a very big one.”

“It’s just that it’s fearsome for a man to have a woman start thinking right in front of him. It always leads to trouble.”