I wanna know everything he does, Pete. Phone calls, mail...In the meantime, I'll crowd him a little, see if he's got any iron in his blood.

[to Macreedy] These rooms here is for us cowboys...when I'm in town. And I'm in town, as any fool can see.

You want to register a complaint, boy? To register a complaint, you've got to have evidence, boy. You got evidence?

Send a wire to Nick Gandi in Los Angeles. Tell him to find out everything he can about John J. Macreedy...Tell him I want to know fast. Don't get too nervous too fast, Hector...you're as jumpy as a stall horse...And while you wait I'll talk to him.

You're not Sheriff any more. You're so pathetic you just lost a job.

I was just wondering what all you people are worrying about...Not that I have the slightest idea...I hold no truck with silence. I've got nothing to hide...It's just that you worry about the stranger only if you look at him from a certain aspect. From my perspective, I look upon him with the innocence of a fresh-laid egg.

[to Macreedy] You might be a potential customer...Everybody is - I get 'em comin' and goin'.

First, I sell 'em a piece of land. Do you think they farm it? They do not. They dig for gold. They rip off the topsoil of ten winding hills, then sprint in here all fog-heaved with excitement, lugging nuggets - big, bright, and shiny. Is it gold? It is not. Do they quit? They do not. Then they decide to farm, farm in a country so dry that you have to prime a man before he can spit. Before you can say 'Fat Sam,' they're stalled, stranded, and starving. They become weevil-brained and buttsprung. So - I bury 'em. But why bore you with my triumphs?

[to Macreedy] Well, you got at least till dark. They'd be afraid to see each other's faces.

Four years ago, something terrible happened here. We did nothing about it. Nothing! The whole town fell into a sort of settled melancholy, and all the people in it closed their eyes, and held their tongues, and failed the test with a whimper. And now something terrible's going to happen again. And, in a way, we're lucky because we've been given a second chance.

Mr. Hastings: Nobody told me the train was stopping...It's the first time the Streamliner has stopped here in four years.

Pete Wirth: You're mighty quick to kill - and he's not an animal.

Pete Wirth: [to Liz, on the phone] I might as well be dead. Yeah, I told him everything...I'm asking you because I need your help. You'd be saving two lives, Liz: Macreedy's and mine, if that means anything to you.

Coley Trimble: Well, if it's not Macreedy, the world's champion roadhog...You ought to be more careful, man - all that one-arm driving...It's a threat to life and limb...You could get yourself killed that way, nosin' all over the countryside.

Conductor: Man, they look woebegone and far away.
Macreedy: Oh, I'll only be here twenty-four hours.
Conductor: In a place like this, it could be a lifetime.