Memorable Quotes from the Outlaw Josey Wales
Lone Watie: Get ready, little lady. Hell is coming to breakfast.
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Senator: Fletcher, there's an old saying: To the victors belong the spoils.
Fletcher: There's another old saying, Senator: Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.
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Bounty Hunter: You're wanted, Wales.
Josey Wales: Reckon I'm right popular. You a bounty hunter?
Bounty Hunter: A man's got to do something for a living these days.
Josey Wales: Dyin' ain't much of a living, boy.
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Fletcher: I think I'll go down to Mexico to try to find him.
Josey Wales: And then?
Fletcher: He's got the first move. I owe him that. I think I'll try to tell him the war is over. What do you say, Mr. Wilson?
Josey Wales: I reckon so. I guess we all died a little in that damn war.
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Josey Wales: Anyone gets hit, sing out. Slap iron to it. It's the fastest way to stop the bleeding.
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Fletcher: Damn you, Senator. You promised me those men would be decently treated.
Senator Lane: They were decently treated. They were decently fed and then they were decently shot.
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Lone Watie: I'm glad you stopped me when you did. I might have killed her.
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Josey Wales: Now remember, (if) things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. 'Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is.
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Josey Wales: You have any food here?
Lone Watie: All I have is a piece of hard rock candy. But it's not for eatin'. It's just for lookin' through.
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Josey Wales: When I get to likin' someone, they ain't around long.
Lone Watie: I notice when you get to dislikin' someone they ain't around for long neither.
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Josey Wales: Are you gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?
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Lone Watie: I didn't surrender, but they took my horse and made him surrender. They have him pulling a wagon up in Kansas I bet.
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Josey Wales: To hell with them fellas. Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.
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Ten Bears: It's sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death. It shall be life.
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Jamie: You can't get 'em all, Josie.
Josey Wales: That's a fact.
Jamie: How come you're doing this, then?
Josey Wales: Because I ain't got nothin' better to do.
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Lone Watie: I'm gettin' better at sneaking up on you like this. Only an Indian can do something like this.
Josey Wales: That's what I figured.
Lone Watie: You figured?
Josey Wales: Only an Indian could do something like that.
Lone Watie: It's not right; this damn woman doing something like this to me. I used to have power. Now old age is creeping up on me.
Josey Wales: More like old habits than old age.
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Laura Lee: Kansas was all golden and smelled like sunshine.
Josey Wales: Yeah, well, I always heard there were three kinds of suns in Kansas, sunshine, sunflowers, and sons-of-bitches.
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Josey Wales: This boy was brought up in a time of blood and dying and never questioned a bit of it. He never turned his back on his folks or his kind. I rode with him... and I got no complaints. The blue bellies will give ya a better burial than I can, boy.
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Granny Hawkins: So, you'll be Josey Wales.
Josey Wales: Now, how might you know that, Granny?
Granny Hawkins: Soldiers were here looking for you 'bout two hours ago.
Sim Carstairs: Uh, I was goin' to mention that to you... as soon as I got the chance.
Granny Hawkins: They say you killed your own men.
Jamie: Those lying, blue-scum bellies...
Granny Hawkins: They say you're a hard put and desperate man, Josey Wales. They're goin' to heel and hide you to a barn door. You know what I say?
Josey Wales: What's that?
Granny Hawkins: I say that big talk's worth doodly-squat. Now, them poultices be laced with feathermoss and mustard root. Mind you drop water on 'em occasional and keep 'em damp.
Granny Hawkins: You can pay me when you see me again, Josey Wales.
Josey Wales: I reckon so.
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Captain Terrell: Not a hard man to track. Leaves dead men wherever he goes.
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Lone Watie: How did you know which one was going to shoot first?
Josie Wales: Well, that one in the center, he had a flap holster and he was in no itching hurry. And the one second from the left, he had scared eyes, he wasn't gonna do nothin'. But that one on the far left: he had crazy eyes. Figured him to make the first move.
Lone Watie: How about the one on the right?
Josie Wales: Never paid him no mind; you were there.
Lone Watie: I could have missed.
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Josey Wales: Chief, I was just wondering: I suppose that mangy red-bone hound's got no place else to go either.
Josey Wales: He might as well ride along with us. Hell, everybody else is.
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Sim Carstairs: Ten year I been ferryin' Kansas Redlegs, Union cavalry, Missouri guerillas... you name it. Mad dogs them guerillas. You look sideways at 'em...
Sim Carstairs: They kill ya.
Carpetbagger: Sound like hard men to do business with.
Sim Carstairs: You bet. You know in my line of work, you gotta be able either to sing "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic" or "Dixie" with equal enthusiasm... dependin' upon present company.
Carpetbagger: Can't say as I blame you for that. Only good business to play it safe.
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Grandma Sarah: This Mr. Wales is a cold-blooded killer. He's from Missouri, where they're all known to be killers of innocent men, women and children.
Lone Watie: Would you rather be riding with Comancheros, Granny?
Grandma Sarah: No, I wouldn't.
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Comanchero Leader: You damn fools! Ten Bears gonna want him a fresh woman. Fresh, that little gal will bring ten, maybe twelve horses. Now, if one of you has to, you can take that old woman over there. She might be worth one donkey.
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Carpetbagger: Your young friend could use some help.
Carpetbagger: This is it... one dollar a bottle. It works wonders on wounds.
Josey Wales: Works wonders on just about everything, eh?
Carpetbagger: It can do most anything.
Josey Wales: How is it with stains?
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Jamie: They comin'.
Carpetbagger: Do you really think you can shoot all those men down before they shoot you? No, no, Mr. Josey Wales; there is such a thing in this country called justice!
Josey Wales: Well, Mr. Carpetbagger. We got somethin' in this territory called the Missouri boat ride.
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Lone Watie: They said a man could get rich on reward money if he could kill you.
Josey Wales: Seems like you was looking to gain some money here.
Lone Watie: Actually, I was looking to gain an edge. I thought you might be someone who would sneak up behind me with a gun.
Josey Wales: Where'd you ever get an idea like that? Besides it ain't supposed to be easy to sneak up behind an Indian
Lone Watie: I'm an Indian, all right; but here in the nation they call us the "civilized tribe". They call us "civilized" because we're easy to sneak up on. White men have been sneaking up on us for years.
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Lone Watie: That meal was damn good. I'm gonna take up teepee livin' if it's like this. You know she thinks I'm some kind of a Cherokee chief.
Josey Wales: I wonder where she ever got that idea.
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Fletcher: Look at those boys over there: tied-down guns. Bounty hunters. Come out of a war, got no other way to make a livin'. Every last mother's son of them wants that money you got on Wales' head. Now, you and me didn't ride all that way for that. I don't want to hear Wales dead... I want to see Wales dead.
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Grandma Sarah: What's all that paint about?
Lone Watie: It's my death face.
Grandma Sarah: You know, we're sure gonna show them redskins somethin' tomorrow. No offense meant.
Lone Watie: None taken.
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Grandma Sarah: This can't be Santa Rio! My son, Tom Turner, said it was a thriving town!
Kelly: It was; but when the silver run out, the thrivin' run out with it.
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Kelly: What'll you have?
Josey Wales: Whiskey.
Rose: Maybe you'd like somethin' else.
Josey Wales: Beer?
Kelly: Been a long time since somebody ordered a drink in San Rio.
Ten Spot: Been a long time since we had anythin' to drink.
Kelly: Yep, first the silver run out, then the people run out, then the whiskey run out, then the beer run out. Don't matter, it's good to see a high roller come through.
Kelly: What's the matter with him?
Rose: I guess some folks don't like to be called 'high rollers'. I knew a man once; he didn't like to be called 'high handed'.
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Fletcher: What's this Redleg doin' here? You told me that the surrender would be to regular Federal authorities!
Senator Lane: Captain Terrell is the regular Federal authority now.
Fletcher: Captain Terrell is a bloodthirsty, murderin' sonofabitch! He's the worst enemy those men have got!
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Mangy Dude: Benny! Come out! We got us the Josey Wales.
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Union Officer: Now get back in line before I kick you so hard you'll be wearin' your ass for a hat.
