- Village Boy 2: We're ashamed to live here. Our fathers are... cowards.
- [O'Reilly takes the boy over his knee and spanks him]
- O'Reilly: [harshly] Don't you ever say that again about your fathers, because they are not cowards! You think I am brave because I carry a gun? Well, your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility, for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers. And this responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. And there's nobody says they have to do this. They do it because they love you, and because they want to. I have never had this kind of courage. Running a farm, working like a mule every day with no guarantee anything will ever come of it. This is bravery. That's why I never even started anything like that... that's why I never will.
- [Calvera has just captured the Seven]
- Calvera: What I don't understand is why a man like you took the job in the first place, hmm? Why, huh?
- Chris: I wonder myself.
- Calvera: No, come on, come on, tell me why.
- Vin: It's like a fellow I once knew in El Paso. One day, he just took all his clothes off and jumped in a mess of cactus. I asked him that same question, "Why?"
- Calvera: And?
- Vin: He said, "It seemed to be a good idea at the time."
- Hilario: We must buy guns. We know nothing about them. Will you buy guns for us?
- Chris Adams: Guns are very expensive and hard to get.
- [pause]
- Chris Adams: Why don't you hire men?
- Hilario: Men?
- Chris Adams: Gunmen. Nowadays men are cheaper than guns.
- Hilario: Would you go?
- Tomas: It would be a blessing if you came to help us!
- Chris Adams: [shaking his head] Sorry, I'm not in the blessing business.
- Hilario: No no, we offer more than that! We could feed you every day!
- Tomas: [taking out a sack] And we have this!
- Chris Adams: What is that?
- Tomas: We can sell this for gold! Everything we own, everything of value in the village.
- Chris Adams: Well, I've been offered a lot for my work... but never everything.
- Village Boy 1: If you get killed, we take the rifle and avenge you.
- Village Boy 2: And we see to it there's always fresh flowers on your grave.
- O'Reilly: That's a mighty big comfort.
- Village Boy 2: I told you he'll appreciate that!
- O'Reilly: Well, now don't you kids be too disappointed if your plans don't work out.
- Village Boy 1: We won't. If you stay alive, we'll be just as happy.
- Village Boy 2: Maybe even happier.
- Village Boy 1: Maybe.
- Chico: Villages like this they make up a song about every big thing that happens. Sing them for years.
- Chris Adams: You think it's worth it?
- Chico: Don't you?
- Chris Adams: It's only a matter of knowing how to shoot a gun. Nothing big about that.
- Chico: Hey. How can you talk like this? Your gun has got you everything you have. Isn't that true? Hmm? Well, isn't that true?
- Vin: Yeah, sure. Everything. After awhile you can call bartenders and faro dealers by their first name - maybe two hundred of 'em! Rented rooms you live in - five hundred! Meals you eat in hash houses - a thousand! Home - none! Wife - none! Kids... none! Prospects - zero. Suppose I left anything out?
- Chris Adams: Yeah. Places you're tied down to - none. People with a hold on you - none. Men you step aside for - none.
- Lee: Insults swallowed - none. Enemies - none.
- Chris Adams: No enemies?
- Lee: Alive.
- Chico: Well. This is the kind of arithmetic I like.
- Chris Adams: Yeah. So did I at your age.
- Old Man: You worry about yourself. Are you ready for him?
- [refers to Calvera]
- Old Man: What if he comes now, huh?
- Vin: Reminds me of that fellow back home that fell off a ten story building.
- Chris: What about him?
- Vin: Well, as he was falling people on each floor kept hearing him say, "So far, so good." Tch... So far, so good!
- Calvera: Generosity... that was my first mistake. I leave these people a little bit extra, and then they hire these men to make trouble. It shows you, sooner or later, you must answer for every good deed.
- Vin: You know the first time I took a job as a hired gun, fellow told me, "Vin, you can't afford to care." There's your problem.
- Chris: One thing I don't need is somebody telling me my problem.
- Vin: Like I said before, that's your problem. You got involved in this village and the people in it.
- Chris: Do you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk?
- Vin: The reason I understand your problem so well is that I walked in the same trap myself. Yeah. First day we got here, I started thinking: Maybe I could put my gun away, settle down, get a little land, raise some cattle. Things that these people know about me be to my credit - wouldn't work against me. I just didn't want you to think you were the only sucker in town.
- [as Chris, Vin and Chico are about to leave the village]
- Old Man: You could a-stay, you know. They wouldn't be sorry to have you a-stay.
- Vin: They won't be sorry to see us go, either.
- Old Man: Yes. The fighting is over. Your work is done. For them, each season has its tasks. If there were a season for gratitude, they'd show it more.
- Vin: We didn't get any more than we expected, old man.
- Old Man: Only the farmers have won. They remain forever. They are like the land itself. You helped rid them of Calvera, the way a strong wind helps rid them of locusts. You're like the wind - blowing over the land and... passing on. Vaya con dios.
- Chris: Adios.
- Calvera: Last month we were in San Juan. Rich town. Sit down. Rich town, much blessed by God. Big church. Not like here - little church, priest comes twice a year. BIG one. You'd think we'd find gold candlesticks. Poor box filled to overflowing. Do you know what we found? Brass candlesticks. Almost nothing in the poor box.
- Sidekick: But we took it anyway.
- Calvera: I KNOW we took it anyway. I'm trying to show him how little religion some people now have.
- [Referring to Britt]
- Villager: If he's the best with the gun and the knife, with whom does he compete?
- Chris: Himself.
- [as the seven are about to leave the village]
- Calvera: You'll do much better on the other side of the border. There you can steal cattle, hold up trains... all you have to face is sheriff, marshall. Once I rob a bank in Texas; your government get after me with a whole army... whole army! One little bank. Is clear the meaning: in Texas, only Texans can rob banks. Ha ha.
- [they look at him in silence]
- Calvera: Adios!
- Chamlee: I'm sorry, friend, but there'll be no funeral.
- Henry: What?
- Chamlee: Oh, the grave is dug and the defunct there is as ready as the embalmers ought to make him. But there'll be no funeral.
- Henry: What's the matter? Didn't I pay enough?
- Chamlee: It's not a question of money. For twenty dollars, I'd plant anybody with a hoop and a holler. But the funeral is off.
- Henry: Now how do you like that. I want him buried, you want him buried and if he could sit up and talk, he'd second the motion. Now that's as unanimous as you can get.
- Chamlee: I don't like it, no sir. I've always treated every man the same: just as another, future customer.
- Henry: Well in that case, get that hearse rolling.
- Chamlee: I can't, my driver's quit!
- Robert: He's prejudiced too, huh?
- Chamlee: Well, when it comes to a chance of getting his head blown off, he's downright bigoted.
- Vin: Rojas is makin' room for you in his home.
- Old Man: Rojas? His conversation would bore me to death!
- Vin: Yeah, well, maybe somebody else, huh?
- Old Man: Hey are all farmers. Farmers talk of nothing but fertiliser and women. I've never shared their enthusiasm for fertiliser. As for women, I became indifferent when I was 83. I am staying here.
- Chris Adams: Bernardo O'Reilly; you've been adopted.
- O'Reilly: Yeah, that's my real name. Irish on one side, Mexican on the other... and me in the middle.
- Lee: Yes. The final supreme idiocy. Coming here to hide. The deserter hiding out in the middle of a battlefield.
- Vin: You know - I've been in some towns where the girls weren't all that pretty. In fact I've been in some towns where they're downright ugly. But it's the first time I've been in a town where there are no girls at all, 'cept little ones. You know if we're not careful we could have quite a social life here.
- Vin: We heard you got that Salinas thing cleaned up in five weeks.
- O'Reilly: They paid me $800 for that one.
- Vin: And Johnson County in four weeks.
- O'Reilly: They paid me $500 for that one.
- Vin: You cost a lot.
- O'Reilly: [proudly] Yeah, I cost a lot.
- Chris: The pay is $20.
- [Chris and Vin turn and walk away]
- O'Reilly: [Calling after them] $20? Right now, that's a lot.
- Old Man: They are all farmers. Farmers talk of nothing but fertilizer and women. I've never shared their enthusiasm for fertilizer. As for women, I became indifferent when I was eighty-three.
- Vin: It took me a long, long time to learn my elbow from a hot rock. Right now, I belong back in that border town sleeping on white sheets.
- Chamlee: There's an element in town that objects.
- Henry: Objects? Objects to what?
- Chamlee: They say he isn't fit to be buried there.
- Robert: What? In Boot Hill?
- Henry: Why, there's nothing up there but murderous cutthroats and derelict old barflies, and if they ever felt exclusive brother, they're past it now.
- Vin: [Chris is driving the hearse up to Boot Hill; Vin is riding shotgun] Never rode shotgun on a hearse before.
- Harry Luck: No tricks now, Chris.
- Chris Adams: Harry! It's good to see you again.
- Harry Luck: Chris.
- Chris Adams: What are you doing in this dump?
- Harry Luck: I heard you've got a contract open.
- Chris Adams: Not for a high-stepper like you.
- Harry Luck: A dollar bill always looks as big to me as a bedspread.
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