The Misfit Quotes

″‘[I]t would have been better for all of you, lady, if you hadn’t of reckernized me.’ Bailey turned his head sharply and said something to his mother that shocked even the children. The old lady began to cry and The Misfit reddened.”

″ ‘No, lady,’ The Misfit said while he was buttoning it up, ‘I found out the crime don’t matter. You can do one thing or you can do another, kill a man or take a tire off his car, because sooner or later you’re going to forget what it was you done and just be punished for it.’ ”

″ When he smiled he showed a row of strong white teeth. ‘God never made a finer woman than my mother and my daddy’s heart was pure gold,’ he said.”

″ ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘you shouldn’t call yourself The Misfit because I know you’re a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell.’ ”

“There was a piercing scream from the woods, followed closely by a pistol report. ‘Does it seem right to you, lady, that one is punished a heap and another ain’t punished at all?’ ”

″ ‘My daddy said I was a different breed of dog from my brothers and sisters. ‘You know,’ Daddy said, ‘it’s some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it’s others has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latters. He’s going to be into everything!’ ”

“Jesus!” the old lady cried. “You’ve got good blood! I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I’ll give you all the money I’ve got!”

“The grandmother noticed how thin his shoulder blades were just behind his hat because she was standing up looking down on him. ‘Do you ever pray?’ she asked. [The Misfit] shook his head. All she saw was the black hat wiggle between his shoulder blades. ‘Nome,’ he said.”

“You could be honest too if you’d only try. Think how wonderful it would be to settle down and live a comfortable life and not have to think about somebody chasing you all the time.”

“I was a gospel singer for a while,” The Misfit said. “I been most everything. Been in the arm service both land and sea, at home and abroad, been twict married, been an undertaker, been with the railroads, plowed Mother Earth, been in a tornado, seen a man burnt alive oncet…”

″ ‘She would of been a good woman,’ The Misfit said, ‘if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.’ ”