Doc [Holliday] was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a frontier vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long lean ash-blond fellow nearly dead with consumption, and at the same time the most skillful gambler and the nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a gun that I ever knew.
Wyatt Earp quotes
Page 1 of 2Fast is fine but accuracy is final. You must learn to be slow in a hurry
I am a friend of Doc Holliday, because when I was city marshal of Dodge City, Kansas, he came to my rescue and saved my life, when I was surrounded by desperados.
I did not intend to fight unless it became necessary in self defense, and in the performance of official duty. When Billy Clanton and Frank McLowry drew their pistolsl I knew it was a fight for life, and I drew and fired in defense of my own life and the lives of my brothers and Doc Holliday.
I think you came here to make a fight with me, and if you did, you can have one here right now.
I was tired of being threatened by Ike Clanton and his gang. I believed from what they had said to others and to me, and from their movements, that they intended to assassinate me the first chance they had, and I thought if I had to fight for my life against them, I had better make them face me in an open fight.
I won't be arrested today. You threw us, Johnny.
In a gun fight... You need to take your time in a hurry
Mind me now, Mannen, put up those guns and go on home.
Remember this, all of you. Nothing counts so much as blood. The rest are just strangers.
Speed is fine, accuracy is final [On the advantage of careful aiming of a weapon over rate of fire]
The fight has now commenced, go to fighting or get away!
There is no hope,my friend. There is only what we do.
Tom McLaury: If you want to fight, I'll make a fight with you anywhere.
Wyatt Earp: All right, make a fight right here.
Wyatt slaps McLaury
Wyatt Earp: Jerk your gun, use it.
Johnny Behan: I will have to arrest you.
Wyatt Earp: Any decent officer can arrest me, but that you or none your kind must not try it.
Johnny Behan: I want to see you Wyatt.
Wyatt Earp: If you're not careful, you'll see me once too often, Johnny.
We had no YMCA's. [To biographer Stuart Lake, when asked late in life why he'd spent so much time in saloons.]