The quotable series will contain quotes from different historical figures, movies and other interesting sources. I love Western books and movies. This has to be one of my all time favorites.
Lonesome Dove
Captain Augustus McRae and Captain Woodrow Call
Lonesome Dove is a 1985 Western novel by American writer Larry McMurtry. It is the first published book of the Lonesome Dove series but the third installment in the series chronologically.
The story focuses on the relationship among several retired Texas Rangers and their adventures driving a cattle herd from Texas to Montana. Set in the closing years of the Old West, the novel explores themes of old age, death, unrequited love, and friendship.
The novel was a bestseller and won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 1989, it was adapted as a TV miniseries starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall, which won both critical and popular acclaim. McMurtry went on to write a sequel, Streets of Laredo (1993), and two prequels, Dead Man's Walk (1995) and Comanche Moon (1997), all of which were also adapted as TV series.
Some of the better known lines include the following:
- The novel’s famous first sentence, for instance: “When Augustus came out on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake—not a very big one.”
- McMurtry’s Texas Ranger McCrae can also be philosophical about killing, but without the pretension. “If I’d wanted civilization,” he says to his partner, Call, “I’d have stayed in Tennessee and wrote poetry for a living. Me and you done our work too well. We killed off most of the people that made this country interesting to begin with.”
- “I'm just tryin' to keep everything in balance, Woodrow. You do more work than you got to, so it's my obligation to do less.”
- Woodrow has just buried Gus and puts up the grave marker made of the famous Hat Creek Cattle Company sign. Woodrow says: “I guess this’ll teach me to be careful about what I promise in the future.”
- When the boys seem a little shocked by Gus’, shall we say, manly appetites, he says: “What’s good for me may not be good for the weak minded.”
- Right after Gus has cut the cards with Lorie and she accuses him of cheating. He says, “I won’t say I did and I won’t say I didn’t, but I will say that a man who wouldn’t cheat for a poke don’t want one bad enough.”
- Not long before Gus goes guns blazing into Blue Duck’s camp to save Lorie, he says, “They don’t know it, but the wrath of the Lord is about to descend on ‘em.”
- Gus finds July Johnson burying his son, and Jenny and Rosco. July is naturally distraught, blaming himself, saying he should have stayed with them. Gus says: “Yesterday’s gone, we can’t get it back.” But he does assure him that if he ever runs into Blue Duck again, he will kill him for him.
- Gus gets exasperated with Woodrow because Woodrow, to Gus’s way of thinking, is being dense. Gus says: “Woodrow, you just don’t ever get the point – ‘It’s not dyin’ I’m talkin’ about, it’s livin’.”
- This quote punctuates the scene when Jake Spoon must be hanged along with the murdering horse thieves he has thrown in with. Jake pleads his case but Gus has little sympathy. He says, “You know how it works, Jake. You ride with the outlaw, you die with the outlaw. Sorry, you crossed the line.”
- The San Antonio bar scene has several great lines together, so I decided to count them as one quote.
- The bartender, upon insulting Gus and Call, gets his nose broken when Gus slams his face into the oak bar. Gus explains: “Besides a whiskey, I think we will require a little respect. . . . If you care to turn around, you will see what we looked like when we was younger and the people around her wanted to make us senators. What we didn’t put up with back then was doddlin’ service, and as you can see, we still don’t put up with it.”
- As they rode away, Woodrow tells Gus he’s lucky he didn’t get thrown in jail and Gus says, “Ain’t much of a crime, whackin’ a surly bartender.”
- A touching line, uttered by Gus as he lay dying. He says to Woodrow: “It’s been quite a party ain’t it?”
- This quote comes at the first of the movie, back at Lonesome Dove when Bol infers that Gus may be too old for romance anymore and Gus sets him straight. He says, “The older the violin, the sweeter the music.”
- Following soon after that scene comes Call’s advice to Newt. Call hands him his first pistol and says,”Better to have that and not need it than need it and not have it.”
- Gus lays out a prescription for Lorie’s future happiness. She is obsessed with going to San Francisco, and he wants her to understand that that dream is likely a misguided one.
- “You see, life in San Francisco is still just life. If you want any one thing too badly, it’s likely to turn out to be a disappointment. The only healthy way to live life is to learn to like all the little everyday things – like a sip of good whiskey in the evening, a soft bed, a glass of buttermilk, or a feisty gentleman like myself.”
- Though Gus gets a great number of the best lines, Woodrow gets, without question, the most powerful, most quoted line of all.
- After Call beat an army scout to a pulp, the horrified townspeople – who have never witnessed such violence before – are standing around in shock and seem to require an explanation. Call obliges them. He says, “I hate rude behavior in a man. I won’t tolerate it.”
Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fit”
This last one isn’t as much a quote as it was a part of the Hat Creek Cattle Company & Livery Emporium sign in Lonesome Dove. Larry McMurtry used it in the creation of the novel and many understand this to mean, “A grape changes color around other grapes.” In layman’s terms, it references personal development and maturation, which each of these characters go through in the series, and which all of us tend to do when traveling through life.
You will be looking for a small camouflaged container. Please let me know if the cache needs attention, and as always, be careful and have fun!