The Shootist Quotes

“I have had high times. But the best times of all were afterward, just afterward, with the gun warm in my hand, the bite of smoke in my nose, the taste of death on my tongue, my heart high in my gullet, the danger past, and then the sweat, suddenly, and the nothingness, and the sweet clean feel of being born.”

“He thought: Oh, I have fed on honey-dew. On wine and whiskey and champagne and the tender white meat of women and fine clothes and the respect of strong men and the fear of weak and the turn of a card and good horses and the crisp of greenbacks and the cool of mornings and all the elbow room that God or man could ask for.”

“You wrong me, and I will not be wronged. So let us have it out, God. Face me! Be a man and face me now if you have the guts - stand and draw or back off!”

“He had not been in El Paso for years, and they had developed it considerably since then, he’d heard, along the lines of sin and salvation. They had churches and a Republican or two and a smart of banks and a symphony orchestra and five railroads and a lumberyard and the makings of a library.”

“The weather wouldn’t settle down. It would rain cats and dogs, then stop, then drip awhile, then stop while it made up its mind what to do next.”

“I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, I won’t be laid-a-hand on. I don’t do these things to other people and I require the same of them.”

“Everybody has laws he lives by, I expect. I have mine as well.”

“She looked at him bravely now for the first time, at his face, the face from which a child had fled, and drew breath. She rose. Her eyes filled. She knew.”

“So much for sin. On the side of salvation they had ninety-some saloons, just shy of one for every hundred citizens, although municipal goodyism had moved the gambling rooms out back or upstairs.”