- Ward Allen: [discovering his guns having been sold for bail money] A gun rack has guns in it!
- Lucy Stubbs: And a home has a husband in it.
- Judge Harden: Christmas, when you saw the Warden coming, why didn't you throw away the Summer Duck?
- Christmas Moultrie: Mr. Judge, you must never et Summer Duck.
- [court erupts in laughter]
- Judge Harden: Case dismissed.
- Ward Allen: It seems that perhaps our world has met a fork in the road. The world took one path, and I took the other.
- [first lines]
- Christmas Moultrie: [hearing a distant gunshot] Boy, that one missed his muster.
- Little Jack Whitford: Did he miss?
- Christmas Moultrie: Oh, yes sir. Ward Allen, missed his muster.
- Little Jack Whitford: Aw, come on, Christmas.
- Christmas Moultrie: Uncle John told me the stories.
- Little Jack Whitford: Tell me another story, Christmas. The one in the war, nearly killed that Russian.
- Christmas Moultrie: Come on now, Jack, I told ya that story a hundred times.
- Jack Cay: Generations of us have hunted on the river and the fields of our county. Something passed between father and son. If history is our religion, then hunting is one of its sacraments.
- Ward Allen: Plato likens the mind of man to an aviary of birds. And birds to kinds of knowledge. I find it a queer thing, knowledge. Because no matter how tight the logic, there's always an error in fact. Well, like a solitary bird separated from the flock in search of adventure.
- Lucy Stubbs: Are you suggesting birds can reason?
- Ward Allen: What is reason next to yearning?
- Lucy Stubbs: If I was a bird, you wouldn't catch me. You see, I recognize a decoy when I see one. So, what kind of bird would I be?
- Ward Allen: Uh, uh, uh, beg your pardon.
- Lucy Stubbs: If I were a bird and you were hunting me, what would I be? Well?
- Ward Allen: A mallard. A particularly beautiful bird in flight.
- Lucy Stubbs: That's all, just a bunch of pretty feathers?
- Ward Allen: Oh no, I enjoy a bird that uses his, uh, native cunning to hunt with honor. A mallard has canny.
- Lucy Stubbs: While I do find your word play entertaining, to a point, I'm not a patient woman. Can you remember that?
- Ward Allen: I will. Can you remember not to touch my guns?