Red River quotes

View Quote [to Bunk] Your sweet tooth is almost as bad as having a whiskey tongue or liking a woman.

View Quote [to Matt] But your heart's soft. Too soft. It may get you hurt some day.

View Quote In the year 1851, Thomas Dunson accompanied by a friend, Nadine Groot, left St. Louis and joined a wagon train headed for California. Three weeks on the trail found them near the northern border of Texas. The land to the South looked good to...

View Quote Groot: [about his false teeth, that he lost playing cards] If you was half-human, you'd give 'em back to me. You can see I could use 'em. Besides, it would help keep the dust out of my mouth.
Quo: Keep mouth shut. Dust not get in.
Groot: Bet I ate ten pounds in the last sixteen days. Before this shenanigan is over, I'll probably eat enough land to incorporate in the Union. The state of Groot.

View Quote And history was written that day in Abilene, August 14, 1865, a day that marked completion of the first drive on the Chisholm Trail. Excitement and wild hilarity greeted the trail weary men and cattle as they poured into...

View Quote The big house will be down by the river and the corrals and the barns behind it. It'll be a good place to live in. Ten years and I'll have the Red River D on more cattle than you've looked at anywhere. I'll have that brand on enough beef to feed the whole country. Good beef for hungry people. Beef to make 'em strong and make 'em grow. But it takes work and it takes sweat and it takes time. Lots of time. It takes years.

View Quote Fen: I know you have work to do, Tom, but I want to be part of it. I love you. I want to be with you. Please take me with you. I'm strong. I can stand anything you can.
Tom: It's too much for a woman.
Fen: Too much for a woman? Put your arms around me, Tom. Hold me. Feel me in your arms. Do I feel weak, Tom? I don't, do I? Oh, you'll need me. You'll need a woman. You need what a woman can give you to do what you have to do. Oh listen to me, Tom. Listen with your head and your heart too. The sun only shines half the time, Tom. The other half is night.
Tom: I've made up my mind.
Fen: Oh change your mind, Tom. Just once in your life change your mind.
Tom: I'll send for ya. Will ya come?
Fen: Of course I'll come. But you're wrong.
...
Fen: Go, please. If you're going to go, please go now. I want to be with you so much. My knees feel like...like they have knives in them. Bye.

View Quote If I was you, Colonel, I'd ponder on lettin' him be. He's a mighty set man when his mind's made up. Even you can't change him. Now he'll be headin' South. Mind he don't stomp on you on the way out.

View Quote Thirty days on the trail and they reached the Brazos. The way now became harder. Hills and rocks impeded their progress. Each weary mile became endless. The men became morose and worried. The cattle restless and jumpy.

View Quote Matt: If there's any chance at all, we'll get your herd to Abilene.
Dunson: Cherry was right. You're soft. You should've let him kill me, 'cause I'm gonna kill you. I'll catch up with ya! I don't know when, but I'll catch up. Every time you turn around, expect to see me. 'Cause one time you'll turn around and I'll be there. I'll kill ya, Matt.

View Quote Dunson: You'd better marry that girl, Matt.
Matt: Yeah, I think I...Hey, when are you gonna stop telling people what to do?
Dunson: Right now. At least as soon as...
Matt: When?
Dunson: ...as soon as I tell ya one thing more.
Matt: What?
Dunson: When we get back to the ranch, I want ya to change the brand. It'll be like this, the Red River 'D' and we'll add an 'M' to it. You don't mind that do ya?
Matt: No. [They smile affectionately toward each other]
Dunson: You've earned it.

View Quote Matt: He's afraid.
Groot: Afraid? Why you're crazy, you're looney.
Matt: Am I?
Groot: Sure, sure, I'm scared too. But I've been here, watchin' and seein'...seein' a man fightin', fightin' with his soul and gut to hang onto this place. Fourteen years of it. And it cost him dear too. It cost him a woman. The only woman he ever wanted...You knew about that. It cost him the killin' of them seven graves, men who tried to take the place away from him. But that weren't hard. Not that.
Matt: No, he knows that kind of fighting. What else?
Groot: And then come the war when you was away. He learned a lot of things for hisself. He learned that a ranch ain't only beef but it's money. But the war took all the money out of the South. He didn't know about money, Matt. He never had none. He didn't know what to do.
Matt: You mean he just doesn't know who to fight.
Groot: Yeah.
Matt: That's all right.
Groot: He's just been waitin' for you to head the herd north and drive. A full drive that's never been done before. Nine, ten thousand head of cattle clear to Missouri.
Matt: We could make it.
Groot: We...well Matt, I'm glad you come home, cause, well, I'm glad you come home.

View Quote [to Matt] Go on, draw. I said 'DRAW'! [Long pause] Then I'll make ya. You're soft! Won't anything make a man out of ya? [He seizes Matt's gun from his holster and throws it away] You once told me never to take your gun away from ya. [He hits Matt in the face several times] You yellow-bellied, cotton-livered...

View Quote One hundred days and in Matthew Garth's heart a growing fear that there was no railroad...

View Quote And that night they moved. The river was rising, they must get across while there was still time. In the meantime, Dunson had found men and ammunition and taken up the chase. He was determined to overtake Matt...