- Beth: [Harrison is drinking] It's a bit early for that, isn't it, Robert?
- Captain Harrison: And it will continue to get a bit early as we go on.
- Zeb Macahan: It was a long time ago, Harrison.
- Captain Harrison: Indeed it was. But... you were her first love. And she was mine. And one never forgets the glory of that first great passion.
- [pause]
- Captain Harrison: Did you?
- Zeb Macahan: Yes.
- Captain Harrison: You're a liar.
- Captain Harrison: My God, Macahan... the glory and... the courage that live in simple men. I-I had a reason, you see, it was my wife. But when I asked for volunteers, every man stepped forward, most of them green recruits who had never fired a shot in anger. And they rode to the death I offered them, schrieking their defiance.
- Captain Harrison: Maybe there's such a thing as reincarnation... come back to you a whole man.
- Beth: If there is such a thing as reincarnation and you succeed in killing yourself, I swear I'll get even with you. I'll have an indian medicine man bring you back as a buffalo chimp.
- Zeb Macahan: I don't like saying this any better than you're gonna like hearing it: I don't think that doctor is gonna be able to save Jesse.
- Zeb Macahan: He's given her strong medicine, but... now it's in the hands of the gods.
- Josh Macahan: Their gods or ours?
- Zeb Macahan: I never figured there was a difference.
- Luke Macahan: How old you say you were?
- Jeffrey: [having earlier claimed to be 16] Fifteen?
- Luke Macahan: I'd say you'd better improve your memory, boy.
- Luke Macahan: Why do they make petticoats so fancy when men aren't even supposed to see 'em?
- Laura Macahan: Who says the're not supposed to see them?
- [the family laughs]
- Molly Culhane: Now now, this conversation is becoming positively ribbald.
- Jeffrey: Please don't send me back, Mr. Macahan. I got nobody who cares where I am and nobody to miss me.
- Zeb Macahan: Now everybody's got somebody that misses him, son.
- Jeffrey: Not me. I had a dog once, and he used to miss me but an indian killed 'em and ate 'em. That's why I don't hanker much for indians.