Governors and legislators wanted the hostiles held in check and the bandits hung, but they wanted it all to be done with the fewest possible men on the cheapest possible horses. It irritated Call and...

He might die, but at least he could fight first, and not simply pass his days shaking at the expectation of slaughter.

You're like a starving person whose stomach is shrunk up from not having any food. You're shrunk up from not wanting nothing.

Jake, you're a dern grasshopper," Augustus said. "You ride in yesterday talking Montana, and today you're talking California.

If I'd have wanted civilization I'd have stayed in Tennessee and wrote poetry for a living

A man that will go along with six killings is making his escape a little slow.

no medicine man or wise man knew why one man died and another lived. Wise men themselves often died before fools, and cowards before men who were brave.

The eastern sky was red as coals in a forge, lighting up the flats along the river. Dew had wet the million needles of the chaparral, and when the rim of the sun edged over the horizon the chaparral...

He was tired of seeing his family only in dreams.

Wrong theory," Augustus said. "Talk's the way to kill it. Anything gets boring if you talk about it enough, even death.

You're the only man I know whose brain don't work unless it's in the shade.

He loved the way she smelled in the mornings; he liked to sniff at her shoulders or her throat.

Well, I got to admit I still like a fight," Augustus said. "They sharpen the wits. The only other thing that does that is talking to women, which is usually more dangerous.

Better by far never to have known the pleasure than to have the pain that followed.

His memories were too sad, his hopes too thin. To have to say things on paper seemed a terrible task, for it stirred the memories.

But once in a while, even if nobody mentioned one, the thought of women entered his head all on its own, and once it came it usually tneded to stay for several hours, filling his noggin like a cloud...

Dish said no more, and Augustus decided not to tease him. Occasionally the very youngness of the young moved him to charity- they had no sense of the swiftness of life, nor of its limits. The years...

Don't be trying to give back pain for pain...You can't get even measures in business like this.

You better introduce yourself before you start talking Latin.

Are you expecting a war party? Call asked the judge. You seem to be thoroughly armed. I expect perdition, always have, the judge replied. I keep this building at my back, and several guns handy, in...

He didn't tell Newt all he knew. He didn't tell him that even when life seemed easy, it kept on getting harder.

She had always loved to tease and considered it an irony of her life that she was often drawn to men who didn't recognize teasing even when she was inflicting it on them.

I think we spent our best years fighting on the wrong side.

One day Augustus asked Newt to ride along with him, much to Newt's surprise. In the morning they saw a grizzly, but the bear was far upwind and didn't scent them. It was a beautiful day-no clouds in...

Once started, love couldn't easily be stopped.

It's a fine world, though rich in hardships at times, Augustus said.

Young things mainly belong to themselves. How they grow up depends on who gets attached to them.

He liked to get off by himself, a mile or so from camp, and listen to the country, not the men.

The whole point of loyalty was not to change: stick with those who stuck with you.

People got opinions, that's all they've got.