Delmar O'Donnell: Oh George, not the livestock!
Ulysses Everett McGill: You ever been with a woman?
Delmar O'Donnell: I gotta get the family farm back before I start worrying about
that.
Ulysses Everett McGill: You two are just dumber than a bag of hammers.
Pete: The Preacher said it absolved us.
Ulysses Everett McGill: For him, not for the law. I'm surprised at you, Pete, I
gave you credit for more brains than Delmar.
Delmar O'Donnell: But they was witnesses that seen us redeemed.
Ulysses Everett McGill: That's not the issue Delmar. Even if that did put you
square with the Lord, the State of Mississippi's a little more hard-nosed.
[Repeated line]
Ulysses Everett McGill: Damn! We're in a tight spot!
Ulysses Everett McGill: Me an' the old lady are gonna pick up the pieces and
retie the knot, mixaphorically speaking.
Ulysses Everett McGill: I'll tell you what I am -- I'm the damn paterfamilias!
You can't marry him!
Pete: Wait a minute. Who elected you leader of this outfit?
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well Pete, I figured it should be the one with the
capacity for abstract thought. But if that ain't the consensus view, then hell,
let's put it to a vote.
Pete: Suits me. I'm voting for yours truly.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well I'm voting for yours truly too.
[Everett and Pete look at Delmar for the deciding vote.]
Delmar O'Donnell: Okay... I'm with you fellas.
Pete: What's the devil look like?
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, Pete, there are all manner of lesser imps and
demons, but the great Satan hisself is red and scaly with a bifurcated tail, and
he carries a hay fork.
Tommy Johnson: Oh no, sir. He's white, as white as you folks, with empty eyes
and a big hollow voice. He likes to travel around with a mean old hound.
Tommy Johnson: I had to be up at that there crossroads last midnight, to sell my
soul to the devil.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, ain't it a small world, spiritually speaking. Pete
and Delmar just been baptized and saved. I guess I'm the only one that remains
unaffiliated.
Ulysses Everett McGill: It does put me in a damn awkward position, vis-a-vis my
progeny.
Penny Wharvey McGill: A lot of respectable people have been hit by trains.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained
in the metallurgic arts before straitened circumstances forced you into a life
of aimless wanderin'?
Ulysses Everett McGill: Only a fool looks for logic in the chambers of the human
heart.
Pete: You stole from my kin!
Ulysses Everett McGill: Who was fixin' to betray us.
Pete: You didn't know that at the time.
Ulysses Everett McGill: So I borrowed it until I did know.
Pete: That don't make no sense!
Ulysses Everett McGill: Pete, it's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers
of the human heart.
Penny Wharvey McGill: Vernon here's got a job. Vernon's got prospects. He's bona
fide. What are you?
Delmar O'Donnell: Them syreens did this to him. They loved him up and turned him
into a horny toad.
Pete: Since we been followin' your lead, we ain't got nothing but trouble.
Pete: No one's gonna pick three dirty, unshaved strangers -- and one of them a
know-it-all who can't keep his trap shut.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Pete, the personal rancor reflected in that remark I
don't intend to dignify with comment. However, I would like to address your
general attitude of negativity. Consider the lilies o' the goddamn field or...
hell! Take Delmar here as your paradigm of hope.
Ulysses Everett McGill: The personal rancor reflected in that remark I do not
wish to dignify with a comment. However, I would like to address your general
attitude of negativity. Consider the lilies a the goddamn field or...hell! Take
Delmar here as your paradigm of hope.
[Shopping for pomade while on the run.]
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well I don't want Fop, godammit! I'm a Dapper Dan man!
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well isn't this place a geographic oddity. Two weeks
from everywhere.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, it didn't look like a two-horse town, but try
finding a decent hair jelly.
Delmar O'Donnell: Friend? Some of your foldin' money is come unstowed.
Delmar O'Donnell: You ain't no kind of man if you ain't got land.
George Nelson: Jesus saves, George Nelson withdraws!
Delmar O'Donnell: You work for the railroad, Grampa?
Blind Seer: I work for no man.
Delmar O'Donnell: Got a name, do you?
Blind Seer: I have no name.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, that right there may be the reason you've had
difficulty findin' gainful employment...
Delmar O'Donnell: We thought you was a toad!
Pete: What?
Delmar O'Donnell: [leaning in, speaking slower] We thought you was a toad!
Lund: Now, what can I do you for Mr. French?
French: How can I lay a hold of them Soggy Bottom Boys?
Lund: Soggy Bottom? I don't recitely recollect them.
French: They cut a record in here a few days ago, was an old-timey harmony thing
with a guitar accom ... accomp ...
Lund: Oh myeah myeah myeah myeah I remember them. They was colored fellas I
believe.
French: Uh huh.
Lund: Yessah, they're a fine bunch a boys. They sang in the yonder can and
skeedadled.
French: Well that record is goin' through the goddamned roof. They playin' it as
far away as Mobile.
Lund: Naw?
French: Whole damn state's goin' apey.
Lund: Well it was a powerful act.
French: Hot damn, we gotta find them boys and sign 'em to a big fat contract.
Hells Bells, Mr. Lund, if we don't the goddamned competition will.
Lund: Ohhhh mercy yes we got to beat that competition.
Ulysses Everett McGill: The treasure is still there boys, believe me.
Delmar O'Donnell: But how'd he know about the treasure?
Ulysses Everett McGill: I don't know Delmar. The blind are reputed to possess
sensitivities compensating for their lack of sight, even to the point of
developing paranormal psychic powers. Now, clearly seeing into the future would
fall into neatly into that category; its not so surprising then that an organism
deprived of its earthly vision ...
Pete: He said we wouldn't get get it. He said we wouldn't get the treasure we
seek on account of our ob-stac-les.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well what the hell does he know, he's just an ignorant
old man?
Pete: Do not seek the treasure!
Blind Seer: You seek a great fortune, you three who are now in chains. You will
find a fortune, though it will not be the one you seek. But first... first you
must travel a long and difficult road, a road fraught with peril. Mm-hmm. You
shall see thangs, wonderful to tell. You shall see a... a cow... on the roof of
a cotton house, ha. And, oh, so many startlements. I cannot tell you how long
this road shall be, but fear not the obstacles in your path, for fate has
vouchsafed your reward. Though the road may wind, yea, your hearts grow weary,
still shall ye follow them, even unto your salvation.
Homer Stokes: The color guard is colored!
Washington Hogwallop: Mrs. Hogwallop done R-U-N-N-O-F-T.
Ulysses Everett McGill: I was not hit by a train. Damnit, I am the
paterfamilias!
Delmar O'Donnell: Gopher, Everett?
Pappy O'Daniel: Shake a leg Junior! Thank God your mammy died givin' birth. If
she'd have seen you, she'd have died o' shame.
Delmar O'Donnell: They...took..his...heart!
Ulysses Everett McGill: [Upon being startled awake] Mmmm. How's my hair?
Ulysses Everett McGill: I detect, like me, you're endowed with the gift of gab.
Big Dan Teague: Thank you boys for throwin' in that fricassee. I'm a man of
large appetite, and even with lunch under my belt, I was feelin' a mite peckish.
Ulysses Everett McGill: It's our pleasure, Big Dan.
Big Dan Teague: You don't say much my friend, but when you do it's to the point,
and I salute you for it.
Ulysses Everett McGill: I am the only daddy you got! I'm the damn paterfamilias!
Wharvey Gal: But you ain't bona fide!
Ulysses Everett McGill: A woman is the most fiendish instrument of torture ever
devised to bedevil the days of man.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Tommy, what you ridin' there?
Tommy Johnson: Uh....Roll top desk!
Delmar O'Donnell: where's the happy little tire swing?
Washington Hogwallop: I slaughtered this horse last Tuesday. I think it's
startin' to turn.
Penny Wharvey McGill: The only good thing you ever did for the gals was get hit
by that train!
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, you lying...unconstant...succubus!
Vernon T. Waldrip: Whoa, whoa, whoa! You can't swear at my fiancé!
Ulysses Everett McGill: Oh, yeah? Well, you can't marry my wife!
Ulysses Everett McGill: Are you sure that's Pete?
Delmar O'Donnell: Of course it is! Look at him! ... We gotta find some wizard to
change him back.
Delmar O'Donnell: Care for a gopher?
Ulysses Everett McGill: No thank you, Delmar. One third of a gopher would only
arouse my appetite without bedding it down.
Delmar O'Donnell: You can have the whole thing. Me and Pete found a whole...
gopher village.
Pete: My pa always said "Never trust a Hogwallop!"
Pappy's Staff: The reason he's pullin' our pants down.
Pappy's Staff: Gonna paddle a little behind.
Pappy's Staff: Ain't gonna paddle it - gonna kick it, real hard.
Pappy's Staff: No, I believe he's gonna paddle it.
Pappy's Staff: I don't believe that's a proper characterization.
Pappy's Staff: Well, that's how I'd characterize it.
Pappy's Staff: I believe it's more of a kickin' sitcheyation.
Pappy O'Daniel: I'll press your flesh you dimwitted sumbitch
[Discussing how to counter Homer Stokes' campaign for governor]
Junior O'Daniel: We could hire our own midget, even shorter than his.
Pappy O'Daniel: Wouldn't we look like a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies, bragging
on our own midget, doesn't matter how stumpy.
Pappy O'Daniel: Moral fibre? I invented moral fibre! Pappy O'Daniel was
displaying rectitude and high-mindedness when that egghead you work for was
still messing his drawers!
Homer Stokes: These boys is not white! These boys is not white! Hell, they ain't
even old timey!
Homer Stokes: This band of miscreants, this very evening, interfered with a
lynch mob in the performance of its duty.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, I guess hard times flush the chump. Everybody's
lookin' for answers...Where the hell's he goin'?
[As Delmar runs out to be baptized]
Pete: Well, I'll be a son of a bitch. Delmar's been saved!
Ulysses Everett McGill: You can't display a toad in a fine restaurant like this!
Why, the good folks here would go right off the feed!
Delmar O'Donnell: I just don't think it's right keeping him under wraps like
we's ashamed of him.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, if it is Pete, I am ashamed of him! Way I see it,
he got what he deserved, fornicating with some whore of Babylon. These things
don't happen for no reason, Delmar. It's obviously some kinda judgment on his
character.
Delmar O'Donnell: Well, the two of us was fixin' to fornicate!
Ulysses Everett McGill: Say, uh, Cousin Wash, I suppose it'd be the acme of
foolishness to inquire if you had a hair net.