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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre quotes

64 total quotes

Bob Curtin
Fred C. Dobbs
Howard
James Cody
Multiple Characters




View Quote [about their gold dust being scattered by the wind] Oh laugh, Curtin, old boy. It's a great joke played on us by the Lord, or fate, or nature, whatever you prefer. But whoever or whatever played it certainly had a sense of humor! Ha! The gold has gone back to where we found it!... This is worth ten months of suffering and labor - this joke is!
View Quote Only foreigners and half-baked Americans fall for McCormick's tricks...I mean he hires dumb guys like you to work for him, and when it comes time to pay off, he takes a powder.
View Quote OK, I'm a liar. There isn't a Gila monster under there. Let's see you stick your hand in and get your goods out...Reach in and get your goods. If you don't we'll think you're yella, won't we, Howard? They never let go, do they Howard, once they grab onto you? You cut 'em in two and the head'll still hang on until sundown, I hear. By that time, the victim doesn't usually care 'cause he's dead anyway. Isn't that right, Howard?...What's the matter, Dobbsie? Why don't you stick your hand right in and get your treasure? It couldn't be because you're scared to, could it, after the way you've been shooting your mouth off. Show us you ain't yella, Dobbsie. I'd hate to think that my partner had a yellow streak up his back.
View Quote It seems between 'em they had a diamond ring, pearl earrings, and quite a lot of money, and a railway ticket with the date of the Agua Caliente train robbery on it. They've been here several days, drinking and shooting off their cannons so that the villagers are afraid to stick their noses out of their huts.
View Quote You know, the Federales don't operate in our American way. They aren't fingerprint experts, that is, but they can follow any trail, and against them, no hideout's any use. They know all the tricks of the bandits. Yep, you can bet your sweet soul they'll trace down every last one of that group that attacked the train. It'll take time - months maybe - but they'll do it.
View Quote [to Curtin] Not many Americans get around this way. You're the first one I've bumped into for a long time.
View Quote [to Curtin] I've a hunch there's loads of the real goods up in those mountains...I can look at a hillside miles away and tell you whether it carries an ounce or a shipload...If you haven't found anything up there yet, I'll come along with ya and put your nose in it. There's indications in this valley, lots of indications. By tracing the rocks, I find they come from that ridge up there, washed down by the tropical rain...
View Quote [to Curtin] I meant what I said about going along with you. Those are my two burros. I'm all packed up and ready to start if you'll let me go with you back to your camp.
View Quote I mean to stay right here. The brush and the mountains are free, aren't they?...Whatever you say or don't say, tomorrow I start to dig for gold here.
View Quote Oh, I know very well you guys could bump me off any minute you wish, but that's a risk worth running, considering the stakes. Let's lay all our cards on the table. As I see it, you guys have got to do one of three things: kill me, run me off, or take me in with you as a partner. Let's consider the first. Another guy may come along tomorrow or maybe a dozen other guys. You start bumping people off, just how far are you prepared to go with it? Ask yourselves that. Also, don't forget, the one actually to do the bumping off would forever be in the power of the other two. The only safe way would be for all three of you to drag out your cannons and bang away at the same instant like a firing squad...As for choice number two, if you run me off, I might very well inform on you...Twenty-five percent of the value of your find is the reward I'd get paid and that would be tempting, mighty tempting...Let's see what number three has to offer. If you take me in with you as a partner, you don't stand to lose anything. I will not ask to share in what you've made so far, only in the profits to come. Well, what do you say?
View Quote [as Dobbs and Curtin come to shoot him] Better take a look down that hill first...They're not soldiers, they're bandits and they're not after gold, but after guns and ammunition. Someone in the village must have told them about the American hunter up here.
View Quote Train conductor: Big boulder on the track so train stop. Bandits get big surprise because soldiers on the train waiting for them - not many passengers got killed.
View Quote White Suit: Such impudence never came my way. Early this afternoon I gave you money. When I was having my shoes polished, I gave you more money. Now you put the bite on me again. Do me a favor, will ya? Go occasionally to somebody else. It's beginning to get tiresome.
Dobbs: Oh, excuse me, mister. I never knowed it was you. I never looked at your face. I just looked at your hands and the money you gave me. Beg my pardon, mister. I promise I'll never put the bite on you again.
White Suit: [He hands over a peso] This is the very last you get from me. Just to make sure you don't forget your promise, here's another peso. But from now on, you have to make your way through life without my assistance.
View Quote Howard: Gold in Mexico? Why sure there is. Not ten days from here by rail and pack train, there's a mountain waiting for the right guy to come along, discover a treasure, and then tickle her until she lets him have it. The question is, are you the right guy?...Aw, real bonanzas are few and far between that take a lot of finding. Say, answer me this one, will ya? Why's gold worth some twenty bucks an ounce?
Man: I don't know. 'Cause it's scarce.
Howard: A thousand men, say, go searching for gold. After six months, one of 'em is lucky - one out of the thousand. His find represents not only his own labor but that of nine hundred and ninety-nine others to boot. That's uh, six thousand months or five hundred years scrabbling over mountains, going hungry and thirsty. An ounce of gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that went into the finding and the getting of it.
Man: Never thought of it just like that...
Howard: Well, there's no other explanation, mister. Gold itself ain't good for nothin' except makin' jewelry with and gold teeth. Aw, gold's a devilish sort of a thing anyway. You start out to tell yourself you'll be satisfied with twenty-five thousand handsome smackers worth of it, 'so help me Lord and cross my heart.' Fine resolution. After months of sweatin' yourself dizzy and growing short on provisions and findin' nothin', you finally come down to fifteen thousand and then ten, finally you say, 'Lord, let me just find five thousand dollars worth and never ask for anything more the rest of my life.'...Here in this joint, it seems like a lot, but I tell you, if you was to make a real strike, you couldn't be dragged away. Not even the threat of miserable death'd keep you from trying to add ten thousand more. Ten you want to get twenty-five. Twenty-five you want to get fifty. Fifty, a hundred. Like roulette. One more turn, you know, always one more.
Dobbs: It wouldn't be that way with me. I swear it wouldn't. I'd take only what I set out to get, even if there was still a half a million dollars worth lying around waitin' to be picked up.
Howard: I've dug in Alaska and in Canada and Colorado. I was with the crowd in British Honduras where I made my fare back home and almost enough over to cure me of the fever I'd caught. I've dug in California and Australia, all over the world practically. Yeah, I know what gold does to men's souls.
Man: You talk as though you struck it rich sometime or other, Pop. How about it? Then what are you doin' in here, a down-and-outer?
Howard: That's gold, that's what it makes of us. Never knew a prospector yet that died rich. Make one fortune, you're sure to blow it in trying to find another. I'm no exception to the rule. Aw sure, I'm an odd old bone now, but say, don't you guys think the spirit's gone. I'm all set to shoulder a pickax and a shovel any time anybody's willing to share expenses. I'd rather go by myself. Going it alone's the best way. But you got to have a stomach for loneliness. Some guys go nutty with it. On the other hand, going with a partner or two is dangerous. Murder's always lurkin' about. Partners accusin' each other of all sorts of crimes. Aw, as long as there's no find, the noble brotherhood will last, but when the piles of gold begin to grow, that's when the trouble starts.
Curtin: Me, now, I wouldn't mind a little of that kind of trouble.
Dobbs: I think I'll go to sleep and dream about piles of gold gettin' bigger and bigger and bigger...
View Quote Dobbs: Do you believe what that old man who was doin' all the talkin' at the Oso Negro said the other night about gold changin' a man's soul so that he ain't the same kind of a guy that he was before findin' it?
Curtin: Guess that all depends on the man.
Dobbs: That's exactly what I say. Gold don't carry any curse with it. It all depends on whether or not the guy who finds it is the right guy. The way I see it, gold can be as much of a blessing as a curse.