- John McCabe: Ma'am, is there something I can do for you?
- Constance Miller: Do you have anythin' to eat? I'm bloody starvin'. It took six hours to get up here in that flippin' contraption.
- John McCabe: Well, you'll have to forgive me, my kitchen ain't in operation yet; but, I could take you up to the restaurant up there if you're hungry enough.
- Constance Miller: I'm hungry enough I could eat a bloody 'orse.
- John McCabe: Well, at Sheehan's place you probably will.
- Constance Miller: Ah, the frontier wit, I see.
- John McCabe: I tell you, sometimes, sometimes when I take a look at you, I just keep looking and a-looking. I want to feel your body against me so bad, I think I'm going to bust. I keep trying to tell you in a lot of different ways. If just one time you could be sweet without no money around. I think I could - well, I'll tell you something. I've got poetry in me. I do. I've got poetry in me!
- John McCabe: If a man is fool enough to get into business with a woman, she ain't going to think much of him.
- John McCabe: You boys gotta make up your minds if you want to get your cookies. Cause if you want to get your cookies, I've got girls up here that'll do more tricks than a goddamn monkey on a hundred yards of grapevine.
- Constance Miller: Listen, Mr. McCabe. I'm a whore, and I know a awful lot about whorehouses. And I know that if you had a house up here, you'd stand to make a lot of money. Now, this is all you've got to do: put out the money for the house. I'll do *all* the rest. I'll look after the girls, the business, the expenses, the running, the furnishing, everything. And I'll pay you back any money you put in the house, so's you won't lose nothin'. And we'll make it fifty-fifty.
- John McCabe: Excuse me, you know I already got a whorehouse operating here.
- Constance Miller: You can't call crib cows whores. I'm talkin' about a proper sportin' house, with class girls and clean linen - and proper hygiene.
- John McCabe: Well, I don't think you're going to find my clientele up here - too interested in that sort of thing.
- Constance Miller: They will be, once they get a taste of it.
- [first lines]
- John McCabe: [muttering to himself] I told you... Think I'm stupid?... S'exactly what I said. Six, six of 'em...
- The Lawyer: McCabe, I'm here to tell you that this free enterprise system of ours works. And working within it, we can protect the small businessman and the big businessman as well.
- John McCabe: Well, I just didn't want to get killed.
- Constance Miller: See, the thing is, it don't mean nothing. You never know, you might even get to like it. I mean, you managed it with Bart, didn't you? Eh?
- [fitting a Ida with some new underwear]
- Constance Miller: You really are small, aren't you. Just like me. I'll get a few pins.
- Ida: But with him I had to. It was my duty.
- Constance Miller: Turn around. It weren't your duty, lda. You did it to pay for your bed and board. And you do this to pay for your bed and board, too! Only, you get to keep a little extra for yourself and you don't have to ask nobody for nothing. Just more honest in my mind.
- John McCabe: Hey, you boys know about the frog that got ate by the eagle? Here's this big old eagle, swooped down and gobbled up this little frog, see. And the little frog is inside the eagle and they're *way* up in the air. The frog is just working his way back in the eagle, he's working his way back, and he looked out the eagle's ass and says, "Hey, eagle! " He says, "Oh!" He says, "How high up are we?" And the eagle says, "Well, we're up about a mile, two miles." And the frog says: "Well, you wouldn't shit me now, would you?"
- John McCabe: You don't work for Harrison Shaughnessy?
- Butler: Sometimes. But only when they can't make a deal.
- John McCabe: Well, look, that's just what I'm trying to tell you. This here deal can be made.
- Butler: Not with me.
- Townsperson: [burial prayer] Almighty God in Heaven who sees and knows all the sinful acts that offend him on this earth. The swift and powerful blade of justice lays open the serpent of people and leaves its putrid flesh to rot under Heaven's sun and sends its soul to burn forever in Hell's fire. Accept the toil of this servant as atonement for his sins and grant him entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven and everlasting life at the foot of the Almight throne. Amen.
- John McCabe: Archer, let's get the guns on the table.
- Archer: Fuck the table. You don't know nothing about it.
- John McCabe: Listen to me, you son of a bitch, all you gotta do is tell me how many spare chippies you got in there, you goddamn butternut muff diver, and I'll tell you how many I need!
- John McCabe: [to some workmen] As I recall, I'm paying you boys fifteen cents an hour after you've been in those goddamn mines all day so you'll have something to do at night 'sides go home and play with Mary Five Fingers!
- John McCabe: Four of clubs. Deuce of spades. Seven of diamonds. Eight of spades. Jack of spades. Three of hearts. Okay, my friend. Jack off.
- Sheehan: McCabe, how long you figure on staying?
- John McCabe: These boys got my tit in a wringer. I hate to move on when I'm losing.
- Sheehan: You can flop here for two bits a night. Come on, I'll show you.
- John McCabe: I need two more.
- Archer: All right, I've got one more I can let you have. You wait a minute. Kate! Come on out here.
- [Kate comes out]
- Archer: You can have her, but you're going to have to get her some teeth.
- John McCabe: All right. How much for three?
- Archer: Three? $80 each.
- John McCabe: $80 for a chippy? I can get a goddamn horse for 50!
- John McCabe: [disgusted] I wouldn't stay up there for free if you had a God damn San Francisco whore in every bed.
- John McCabe: Ain't nobody gonna to touch one of them little ladies until we're open for business. And we ain't open for business until we get them God damn tents up. Now, you get back to work. Get your ass off your shoulder, and we'll have a little fun around here.
- Sheehan: The minute I seen you ride into town, I knew you was a man to be reckoned with.
- John McCabe: Now, Sheehan that's a lot of shit and you know it. Now, why don't you tell me what the Hell it is you come up here for.
- Constance Miller: What do you do when one girl fancies another? How do you know when a girl really has her monthly or is just taking days off? What about when they don't get their monthlies? Cause they don't. What do you do then? I suppose you know all about seeing to that? An what about the customers? Who's gonna skin 'em back and inspect 'em? You gonna to do that? If you don't, this town will be clapped up inside of two weeks, if it's not already. What about when business is slow? You just gonna let the girls sit around on their bums? I'll tell you something, Mr. McCabe, when a good whore gets time to sit around and think, four out of five times she'll turn to religion 'cause that's what they was born with. And when that happens, you find yourself fillin' the bloody church down there, instead of your own pockets. Now, I haven't got a lot of time to sit around and talk to a man who's too dumb to see a good proposition when it's put to him. Do we make a deal or don't we? Well?
- Constance Miller: You're John McCabe?
- John McCabe: Yeah.
- Constance Miller: Mrs. Miller. I came from Bearpaw to see you.
- Constance Miller: If you want to make out like you're such a fancy dude, you ought to wear something besides cheap Jockey Club cologne.
- John McCabe: What do you got for supper, Sheehan?
- Sheehan: Alfie, get the tablecloth. Got some nice tripe. Mrs. Dunn is just puttin' the stew on the fire.
- John McCabe: Got any more of them mountain oysters?
- Sheehan: Nah, eh, got some nice deer meat.
- Constance Miller: Got any eggs? Fresh eggs?
- Sheehan: Yeah, fresh eggs.
- Constance Miller: I'll have four eggs, fried. Some stew. And I want some strong tea.
- Sheehan: Strong tea. Fine. McCabe?
- John McCabe: I'll just have my double whiskey and a raw egg.
- John McCabe: You think I'm gonna let some God damn chippy come up here and tell me how to run a gooseberry ranch? You got the God damn saddle on the wrong horse. Those girls will come up here when I God damn tell them to come up here.
- John McCabe: My dear madam! I can hold my own in any game of chance, with amount you can count, and I can figure out them payoffs before you can blink an eye! Don't give me horse-puckies just because it takes me time to write it up formal.
- Maisie: I'm not fucking any Chinaman.
- Whore: Oh, shut up, Maisie! Did you ever know a chink wouldn't fuck another chink when there's a white woman's around?
- Constance Miller: Why are you always in such a lousy temper?
- John McCabe: Because, my dear Mrs. Miller, I not only built you your gooseberry ranch, I've paid for a bathhouse I don't need. I've paid for transportation. I've paid for towels, and linens, and enema bags. I've paid for things them chippies of yours don't even know how to use. But I have not sold a full bottle of whiskey in here today, and that's a fact!
- Constance Miller: And that, my dear Mr. McCabe, is because every geezer in this town was takin' a bath in your bathhouse or havin' it off with a girl in your whorehouse.
- John McCabe: I got better offers than that from Monkey Ward. So now, if you boys want to talk business with me, what you've got to do is get your offer way up there in the air, where it belongs.
- John McCabe: When you get yourself in a gambling situation you got to know when the other fellow's bluffing. Didn't I tell you them two gimpers would come back to me? Huh? I told you. See, once in a while, if you would just learn to trust me, Constance, everything is going to be a lot easier. You'll find that out.
- Constance Miller: Don't think you can fool me with that bay rum again, because it won't work. You had a bath?
- John McCabe: Madam, I've been in the God damn water so long my ass is wrinkled up. Now open the door.
- Smalley: Those other two, they left last night. Oh, you handled them beautifully. They knew they weren't dealin' with no tinhorn.
- Ida: Well, It just hurts so much. I guess maybe I'm - small?
- Constance Miller: No, you've just got to learn to relax, that's all.
- [fitting Ida with some new underwear]
- Constance Miller: I think that maybe this will do. Stand up, take your top off. You've got to take your mind off it, think of something else. Yeah? Look at a wall. Count the roses in the wallpaper.
- John McCabe: I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm doing.
- Constance Miller: What's he carrying around that bloody blunderbuss with him for?
- John McCabe: I don't know. Maybe he come up here to hunt possum.
- Butler: I don't make deals.
- John McCabe: What are you doing here, if you don't make deals?
- Butler: I came up here to hunt bear.
- John McCabe: I don't know what they mean by "all my holdings." I mean, "all my holdings?" Does that mean - my horses, my clothes, my underwear? I don't know what it means.
- John McCabe: It's just my luck. The only woman's ever been one to me, is just a whore. But what the hell, I never was a percentage man. I suppose a whore is the only kind of woman I'd know.
- John McCabe: All the time making me feel like I'll make a fool out of myself. Now we'll see who the fools is. Son of a bitches. I never did fit in this goddamn town.
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