The Night of the Hunter quotes

View Quote [about a young couple] Goodness, fools. Look at that. She'll be losin' her mind to a tricky mouth and a full moon, and like as not I'll be saddled with the consequences.

View Quote I'm a strong tree with branches for many birds. I'm good for somethin' in this old world, and I know it, too.

View Quote You were looking for love, Ruby, in the only foolish way you knew how. We all need love, Ruby. I lost the love of my son. I found it with you all. You're going to grow up to be a strong, fine woman and I'm gonna see to it that you do.

View Quote It's a hard world for little things.

View Quote You know, when you're little, you have more endurance than God is ever to grant you again. Children are humanity's strongest. They abide.

View Quote [about John's present to her of an apple] That's the richest gift a body could have.

View Quote Lord, save little children. You'd think the world would be ashamed to name such a day as Christmas for one of them and then go on in the same old way. My soul is humble when I see the way little ones accept their lot. Lord, save little children. The wind blows and the rain's a-cold. Yet they abide...They abide and they endure.

View Quote I feel clean! My whole body is a'quiver with cleanness!

View Quote You have all sinned. Which one of you can say, as I can say, that you drove a good man to murder because I kept a-houndin' him, for perfume, and clothes, and face paint? And he slew two human beings. And he come to me, and he said, 'Take this money, and buy yourself the clothes! And the paint!'...But brother-n, brother-n, oh that's where the Lord stepped in, that's where the Lord stepped in...He said, the Lord, to that man, 'You take that money, and you throw it in the river!'

View Quote John, you always make up that lie. There is no money. Why can't you get that through your head?

View Quote [to Powel] It ain't in the river, is it, Harry?...Ben never told you he throw'd it in the river, did he?...The children know where it's hid. John knows. Is that it, Harry? Then, it's still here amongst us, taintin' us. You must have known about it all along, Harry? But that ain't the reason why you married me. I know that much...He made you marry me, so you could show me the Way and the Life and the salvation for my soul. Ain't that so, Harry? So you might say that it was the money that brung us together. The rest of it don't matter.

View Quote The rock in the smokehouse, no, the bricks in the grape arbor, no, no, they'll dig for it. Sure. That's the place.

View Quote [to Powell] I got tired of seein' children roamin' the woodlands without food. Children roamin' the highways in this here Depression. Children sleepin' in old abandoned car bodies and junk heaps. And I promised myself I'd never see the day when my young-uns would want.

View Quote No woman is able to raise growing youngsters alone. The Lord meant that job for two...It ain't a question of want it or not want it. You're no spring chicken. You're a grown woman with two little young-uns. It's a man you need in the house, Willa Harper.

View Quote [about Powell] It's a mighty good man would go out of his way to bring a word of cheer to a grieving widow.