“Well, boys," Long Bill said. "I guess here's where I quit rangering. It's rare sport, but it ain't quite safe.”

“Is growin' up always miserable?" Sonny asked. "Nobody seems to enjoy it much." "Oh, it ain't necessarily misearble," Sam replied. "About eighty percent of the time, I guess." They were silent again, Sam the Lion thinking of the lovely, spritely girl he had once led into the water, right there, where they were sitting. "We ought to go to a real fishin' tank next year," Sam said finally. "It don't do to think about things like that too much. If she were here now I'd probably be crazy again in about five minutes. Ain't that ridiculous?" A half-hour later, when they had gathered up the gear and were on the way to town, he answered his own question. "It ain't really, " he said. "Being crazy about a woman like her's always the right thing to do. Being a decrepit old bag of bones is what's ridiculous.”

“Why hell yes, Joe Bob! A cripple can always get himself a wooden leg, or a glass eye, or a metal hook for a hand, or any of that mess -- but there ain't no known substitute for a big dick. I guess you is out of luck!”

“Who asked them dern pigs?” he said. “I guess they tracked us,” Augustus said. “They’re enterprising pigs.”

“You know Deets is like me - he's not one to quit on a garment just because it's got a little age - spoken by Augustus McCrae”

“Nobody run off with her,” Roscoe said. "She just run off with herself, I guess.”

“You don't look strong enough to trouble nobody around here.... We grow our own troubles--it would be a novelty to have some we ain't already used to.”