- Bret Maverick: When my brother and I left home, my pappy said, "If either one of you comes back with a medal, I'll beat you to death."
- Red Scanlon: I'll ask ya again. Ya buying in?
- Bret Maverick: You'll know if I do.
- Red Scanlon: Oh? How?
- Bret Maverick: I'll never turn my back to you.
- Somers: Where are you going?
- Bret Maverick: Well, I'm gonna pack my things and ride out before Wade and his outfit ride in.
- Somers: You're that ascared of him?
- Bret Maverick: Me? Scared of Wade and 50 well-armed trail hands? Perish the thought.
- Somers: We wanna talk to you, Mr. Buckner.
- George Buckner: Not now, gentlemen. I'm packing to leave on the coach for Topeka.
- Gus Wilson: Raise the devil and now you're flying to hide in church!
- Red Scanlon: How far do you have to be pushed 'fore you get mad?
- Bret Maverick: Pretty far. Just why are you pushing so hard?
- Red Scanlon: I don't like the way you wear your head. It's too high and your neck's too stiff. I just don't like you Maverick. See you're wearing your gun.
- Bret Maverick: Just in case I run across a snake.
- Bret Maverick: A man who shouts brave and loud and then runs when he gets answered... that man makes me sick.
- Gus Wilson: Just what is your business?
- Bret Maverick: Staying alive, enjoying good food, an untroubled mind and a good digestion.
- [first lines]
- Bret Maverick: These are some of the hundreds of thousands of cattle that were driven up the dusty trail from Texas to the Kansas rail-heads in the 1870s. The trip was hard on men and beef alike. So the drive sometimes stopped a while in Southern Kansas where the water was free and the grass green. They had some pretty good poker games in those towns along the way. And Kiowa City was one of them. A town made prosperous by the trail drives. A prosperity they weren't always happy with. The trail hands felt they were cheated in the stores and saloons. Townspeople felt that the cowhands were a bunch of savages. I don't know about that. But they weren't very good poker players.
- Bret Maverick: I'm a great believer in peace and quiet. I think I'll go to bed before some of his Texas friends decide to pick up the argument.
- Bret Maverick: A man's a fool to call a hand when he knows he's beat. That's one of the rules of my business.
- Bret Maverick: There isn't any law out here except what a man can make and enforce for himself. It can't last long, but that's the way it is for now.