The Treasure of the Sierra Madre quotes

View Quote Dobbs: Hey, if there was gold in them mountains, how long would it have been there? Millions and millions of years, wouldn't it? So what's our hurry? A couple of days more or less ain't gonna make any difference.
Curtin: Remember what you said back in Tampico about having to pack an old man on our backs?
Dobbs: That was when I took him for an ordinary human being - not part goat. Look at him climb, will ya?
Curtin: What gets me is how he can go all day long in the sun without any water.
Dobbs: Maybe he's part camel too.
Curtin: If I'd known what prospecting meant, I'd have stayed in Tampico and waited for another job to turn up.

View Quote Dobbs: I owe my life to you, partner.
Curtin: Forget it.

View Quote Curtin: You talk like you're boss of this outfit.
Dobbs: Maybe you are. Let's hear you say it.

View Quote Howard: I reckon I'll settle down in some quiet place. Get me a little business...a hardware or grocery store, and spend the better part of my time readin' comic strips and adventure stories. Ha. One thing's for sure. I'm not gonna go prospectin' again and waste my time and money trying to find another gold mine.
Curtin: I figure on buying some land and growing fruit - peaches maybe...One summer when I was a kid, I worked as a picker in a peach harvest in the San Joaquin Valley. Boy, it sure was something. Hundreds of people, old and young, whole families workin' together. At night, after a day's work, we used to build big bonfires and sit around and sing to guitar music, till morning sometimes. You'd go to sleep and wake up and sing, and go to sleep again. Everybody had a wonderful time. Ever since then, I've had a hankering to be a fruit grower. Must be grand watching your own trees put on leaves, come into blossom and bear...watching the fruit get big and ripe on the boughs, ready for pickin'...
Dobbs: Well, first off, I'm goin' to a Turkish bath and I'm gonna sweat and soak till I get all the grime and dirt out of my system. Then I'm goin' to a haberdasher's and I'm gonna get myself a brand new set of duds...a dozen of everything. Then, I'm goin' to a swell cafe - order everything on the bill of fare, and if it ain't just right, or maybe even if it is, I'm gonna bawl the waiter out and make him take the whole thing back...
Curtin: The next thing on the program would be dames.
Dobbs: Yeah.
Howard: If I were you boys, I wouldn't talk or even think about women. It ain't good for your health.

View Quote Dobbs: The cards are dealt the other way now and for the last time no more shuffling...I'm gonna finish this right now. No more takin' orders from you like I had to do today. Get me?
Curtin: You mean you're gonna murder me?
Dobbs: No brother, not murder. No. Your mistake. I'm doing this to save my life that you'd be taking from me the minute I wasn't lookin' at ya.
Curtin: The old man will catch up with ya.
Dobbs: Oh he will, will he? Well, I got an answer for that one too. You know what I want to tell him? I want to tell him you tied me to a tree and made your getaway taking all the goods - yours, mine, and his. So they'll be looking for you and not me. Up. March. Today I had to march to your music - now you march to mine.
Curtin: Where?
Dobbs: To your funeral. Come on, keep going. Get up. Sleepy huh? You'll be asleep soon enough. Sound asleep.

View Quote [about Dobbs and Curtin's "find"] This stuff wouldn't pay you dinner for a carload. Next time you fellas strike it rich, holler for me, will ya, before you start splashing water around. Water's precious. Sometimes it can be more precious than gold.

View Quote [about his winning lottery ticket] Just look at that fat, rich, printed number! That's the kind of sugar Papa likes. Oh, two hundred pesos! Welcome, sweet little smackeroos.

View Quote Can you help a fellow American down on his luck?

View Quote [about Cody] Fred C. Dobbs ain't a guy likes bein' taken advantage of - do the mug in, I say!

View Quote Dobbs: We'll be lonesome without you, but you know my Sunday school teacher used to say, 'You've got to learn to swallow disappointments in this sad life.'
Howard: Pick me out a good-looking squaw and marry her. They're easy to dress and feed and entertain. They don't nag at you either. Well, so long partners.

View Quote If I was a native, I'd get me a can of shoe polish and I'd be in business. They'd never let a gringo. You can sit on a bench til you're three-quarters starved. You can beg from another gringo. You can even commit burglary. But try shining shoes in the street or peddling lemonade out of a bucket and your hash is settled. You'd never get another job from an American.

View Quote Well sure! You're old...I'm young. I need dough and plenty of it.

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 [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 Hey you fellas, how about some beans? Ya want some beans? Goin' through some mighty rough country tomorrow - you better have some beans!