“Perhaps you are right. In another setting it would be ridiculous, too grand. In another setting it would not happen because you are a famous woman and at best I would shake your famous hand for one second while you stepped into your car after a performance. But in this place I hear you sing every day. In this place I watch you eat your dinner, and what I feel in my heart is love. There is no point in not telling you that. These people who detain us so pleasantly may decide to shoot us after all. It is a possibility. And if that is the case, then why should I carry this love with me to the other world? Why not give to you what is yours?”

“Why did you betray your own heart Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. ... You loved me - then what right had you to leave me? Because ... nothing God or satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you - oh God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave? [...] I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer - but yours! How can I?”

“All I could think about while driving after you was how it was about to happen all over again and that I would never be able to feel your warm skin under my hands or look into your beautiful blue eyes, or tell you how much I love you.”

“(While accepting the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award) I've been thinking about why you have to get famous to get an award for helping other people...If your name is John Doe, and you work night and day doing things for your helpless neighbors, what you get for your effort is tired. So, Mr. and Mrs. Doe, and all of you who give of yourselves, to those who carry too big a burden to make it on their own, I want you to reach out and take your share of this...Because if I have earned it, so too have you.”

“You are a woman with a heart and soul. The choices you make in this lifetime are yours and yours alone. If you love him, and I mean truly love him to the point where you would die in agony without him, then do not waste another second. Run to him, dove, because when someone means that to you there is nothing that should stand in your way.”

“Then I realized I loved you. That was awful.""Awful!""Loving you and knowing I couldn't have you was tearing me apart. Though I knew nothing would pardon me in your eyes, I had to do what I could to make sure you'd always have your family to take care of you. That's why I sent the telegram to Washington, asking for the authority to grant amnesty to your brothers and your pa."I saved your family because I loved you, darlin', not because of what they could do to help me. True, they made the job easier, but I would have managed one way or another."As for the wedding, your pa just provded me with the excuse to ignore the consequences and take what I wanted most in the world-you. I should have told you everything then. But I was selfish, Willow,and I feared I'd lose you once you knew the truth."I guess I was hoping that once you were legally mine you'd give the two of us a chance.I even began telling myself that the amnesty deal would soften your opinion of me. When a man loves a woman as much as I love you, he reaches for almost any excuse to make himself believe he can win her over.”