- Betty Lee Parsons: I have no intention of wasting sympathy on him.
- Glenn Tyler: Sympathy is never wasted, Betty Lee. One way or another, you get it back, or so it says in the Book.
- Glenn Tyler: You'd think I set a blow torch to the American flag. What's a man for if he can't aim high, ma'am?
- Mr. Parsons: Back to the house, Betty Lee. You get off this property, son, kite and all!
- Betty Lee Parsons: Daddy, don't be mad.
- Glenn Tyler: I'm sorry, sir, if you think that I'm...
- Mr. Parsons: I've not the slightest concern what you think. Get back to your folks in their wallow. You're all a lot of pigs.
- Betty Lee Parsons: Daddy, stop! If you have something to say...
- Mr. Parsons: Don't you answer back. You didn't come to church. Get to the house, and help your ma put dinner on. No child of mine gets taught ungodly things on the Sabbath or any other day.
- Glenn Tyler: If you weighed it on a scale, you could find more godliness here in this sun and air than in that church of yours.
- Mr. Parsons: Don't you come around here again. I'll not have it. Where's God? I don't know. He takes a boy like my son off in the war and leaves a loafer and braggart like you alive.
- Noreen Braxton: I wanna get out of here. I'm young. I want a good time out of life.
- Glenn Tyler: Then do it, hun. Paint your toenails red and run away.
- Noreen Braxton: It needs a man to go to Hell with, because that's what I want. Hours and hours of Heaven that just slides on down to Hell and we don't care how or when it ends. You're wild, Glenn, just like me. Unhappy wild!
- Noreen Braxton: I got enough chores to do
- Uncle Rolfe Braxton: What's eating on you? You cursing to be chastised agin?
- Noreen Braxton: [Later scene, on stairs to pharmacy] You don't paddle me like you don't count bills!
- Irene Sperry: Surely, Glenn, you realize you're gifted.
- Glenn Tyler: I don't care to be gifted. It's too hard. It's too much work. A person who's gifted gets knocked around, and I've been knocked around enough.
- Irene Sperry: If we were all afraid to be knocked around, there'd be no great men. We'd have no scholars, no scientists, no artists, no movers and shakers... Those who overcome handicaps, who live to move and shake the world - shake it out of its alligator sleep and move people up and out of the swamps!