"Davis Newman: This chick, man, without the benefit of dying herself, has broken down the process of death into five stages: anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Sounds like a Jewish law firm. "Good morning, Angerdenialbargainingdepressionacceptance!""

"Audrey Paris: You see, Sammy, in California everybody needs a car. I got a friend who bought a Mercedes just to get to the bathroom."

"[singing] Give it to me! Bye bye life, Bye bye happiness, hello loneliness, I think he's gonna die. Bye bye life, Bye bye happiness, Hello emptiness, I think he's gonna die. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. Goodbye your life, goodbye."

"Folks! What can I tell you about my next guest? This cat allowed himself to be adored, but not loved. And his success in show business was matched by failure in his personal relationship bag, now — that's where he really bombed. And he came to believe that work, show business, love, his whole life, even himself and all that jazz, was bullshit. He became numero uno game player — uh, to the point where he didn't know where the games ended and the reality began. Like, for this cat, the only reality — is death, man. Ladies and gentlemen, let me lay on you a so-so entertainer, not much of a humanitarian, and this cat was never nobody's friend. In his final appearance on the great stage of life — uh, you can applaud if you wanna — Mr. Joe Gideon!"

"[last lines, Joe is dying] Hey, at least I won't have to lie to you anymore."

""[to God, during the "hospital escape" scene]" What's the matter, don't you like musical comedy?"

"The pain is gone. I'm OK. Nothing wrong with me a rewrite of the show wouldn't cure. A couple of good jokes is what I need."

"Stop smiling! Lay back! Lay back! Hold it, hold it, hold it. Candy, Casey, very good. You're gonna do it again, Victoria. Gary, Danny, let's go. Stop smiling, it's not the high school play. Count! Hold it. [to Victoria] Stand on your right foot. Point your left toe. Drop the shoulder. Now, that's not too hard, is it? Again!"

"Do you suppose Stanley Kubrick ever gets depressed?"

"[to Audrey] If I die, I'm sorry for all the bad things I did to you. [to Katie] And if I live, I'm sorry for all the bad things I'm gonna do to you."

"Sometimes, I don't know where the bullshit ends and the truth begins."

"[repeated line] It's showtime, folks!"

"Little did I realize that what began in the alleys and backways of this quiet town would end in the Badlands of Montana."

"Gail Threlkeld - Girl"

"Bryan Montgomery - Boy"

"John Carter - Rich man"

"Gary Littlejohn - Sheriff"

"Alan Vint - Deputy"

"Ramon Bieri - Cato"

"Warren Oates - Holly's Father (Mr. Sargis)"

"Sissy Spacek - Holly Sargis"

"Martin Sheen - Kit Carruthers"

"He was 25 years old. He combed his hair like James Dean. She was 15. She took music lessons and could twirl a baton. For a while they lived together in a tree house. In 1959, she watched while he killed a lot of people."

"In 1959 a lot of people were killing time. Kit and Holly were killing people."

"Don't worry now, I'm gonna get you off these charges. There's a whole lot of other boys out there waitin' for ya. You're gonna have a lot of fun. Boy, we rang the bell, didn't we? I'll say this though, that guy with the deaf maid? He's just lucky he's not dead, too. Course, uh, too bad about your dad...We're gonna have to sit down and talk about that sometime."

"[to his arresting officers] Well, you boys have performed like a couple of heroes. And don't think I'm not gonna pass it around when we get to town."

"Name's Carruthers. Believe I shoot people every now and then. Not that I deserve a medal."

"You get a little money in your pocket, you think all your problems are solved. Well, let me tell you, they're not."

"[on a recording] Listen to your parents and teachers. They got a line on most things, so don't treat 'em like enemies. There's always an outside chance you can learn something. Try to keep an open mind. Try to understand the viewpoints of others. Consider the minority opinion, but try to get along with the majority of opinion once it's accepted. Of course, Holly and I have had fun, even if it has been rushed, and uh, so far, we're doing fine, hadn't got caught. Excuse the grammar."

"I'll give you a dollar if you eat this collie."

"[on a recording] My girl Holly and I have decided to kill ourselves, same way I did her Dad. Big decision, huh? Uh, the reasons are obvious, and I don't have time to go into them right now. But uh, one thing, though. He was provoking me when I popped him. That's what it was like, a Pop! We're sorry, I mean, uhm, nobody's coming out of this thing happy, especially not us. I can't deny we've had fun, though. I mean, uhm, that's more than I can say for some. That's the end of the message. I run out of things to say. Thank you."

"[to Mr. Sargis] Suppose I shot you. How'd that be?"

"I got it all planned - and, uh, I'm taking Holly off with me."

"Somebody dropped a bag on the sidewalk. Everybody did that, the whole town'd be a mess."

"Kit and I were taken back to South Dakota. They kept him in solitary, so he didn't have a chance to get acquainted with the other inmates, though he was sure they'd like him, especially the murderers. Myself, I got off with probation and a lot of nasty looks. Later, I married the son of the lawyer who defended me. Kit went to sleep in the courtroom while his confession was being read, and he was sentenced to die in the electric chair. On a warm spring night, six months later, after donating his body to science, he did."

"Often, I've wondered what was going through Kit's head before they got him, and why he didn't make a run for it while he still had the chance. Did he figure they'd just catch him the next day? Was it despair? He claimed to having a flat tire, but the way he carried on about it, I imagine this is false."

"Kit knew the end was coming. He wondered if he'd hear the doctor pronounce him dead, or if he'd be able to read what the papers would say about him the next day, from the other side. He dreaded the idea of being shot down alone, he said, without a girl to scream out his name. Then, for an instant, the sight of the mountains in the dawn light got his hopes back up."

"We took off at sunset, on a line toward the mountains of Saskatchewan, for Kit a magical land beyond the reach of the law. He needed me now more than ever, but something had come between us. I'd stopped even paying attention to him. Instead, I sat in the car and read a map and spelled out entire sentences with my tongue on the roof of my mouth, where nobody could read them. That night we moved closer to the border, and clear across the prairie, at the very edge of the horizon. We could make out the gas fires of the refineries at Missoula, while to the south, we could see the lights of Cheyenne, a city bigger and grander than I'd ever seen. I felt all kind of things looking at the lights of Cheyenne, but most important, I made up my mind to never again tag around with a hell-bent type, no matter how in love with him I was. Finally, I found the strength to tell Kit this. I pointed out that even if we got to the Far North, he still couldn't make a living."

"He took and buried some of our things in a bucket. He said that nobody else would know where we'd put 'em, and that we'd come back someday, maybe, and they'd still be sitting here, just the same, but we'd be different. And if we never got back, well, somebody might dig 'em up a thousand years from now and wouldn't they wonder!"

"We lived in utter loneliness, neither here nor there. Kit said that solitude was a better word, 'cause it meant more exactly what I wanted to say. Whatever the expression, I told him we couldn't go on living this way... "I feel like a, kind of like an animal living out here. There's no place to bathe and not any place to get anything good to eat."...In the distance, I saw a train making its way silently across the plain, like a caravan in The Adventures of Marco Polo. It was our first taste of civilization in weeks, and I asked Kit if we could have a closer look."

"Fearing there'd be roadblocks on the highways, we took off across that region known as the Great Plains. Kit told me to enjoy the scenery - and I did. "Rumor: Pat Boone is seriously considering giving up his career so he can return to school full-time and complete his education. Fact: Pat has told intimates that so long as things are going well for his career, it's the education that will have to take a back seat...Rumor: Frank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth are in love. Fact: True, but not with each other." Through desert and mesa, across the endless miles of open range, we made our headlong way, steering by the telephone lines toward the mountains of Montana. Kit would sometimes ram a cow to save on ammo, and we'd cook it. Once we had to eat a bunch of salt grass. It tasted like cabbage. For gas, we used the leakage from the valves of the pipelines we found along the way. Drip gas is what it's called in that part of the country. Little by little, we approached the border. Kit was glad to leave South Dakota behind and cursed its name. He said that if the Communists ever dropped the atomic bomb, he wished they'd put it right in the middle of Rapid City."