"That's my novel, Nat...I was to start writing it out in the country. Morbid stuff. Nothing for the Book-of-the-Month Club. A horror story! Confessions of a booze addict. The log book of an alcoholic...You know what I'm gonna call my novel? The Bottle. That's all, very simply, The Bottle. I've got it all here in my mind. Let me tell you the first chapter. It all starts one wet afternoon about three years ago. There was a matinee of La Traviata at the Metropolitan..."

"There'll happen to be a little floor show later on around here. It might get on your nerves... Ever have the DT's?... You will, brother... After all, you're just a freshman. Wait'll you're a sophomore. That's when you start seeing the little animals. You know that stuff about pink elephants? That's the bunk. It's little animals! Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes. See that guy over there? With him it's beetles. Come the night, he sees beetles crawling all over him. Has to be dark though. It's like the doctor was just telling me: delirium is a disease of the night. Good night."

"If we let you guys go home alone, a lot of you don't go home. You just hit the nearest bar and bounce right back again. What we call the quick ricochet... This department is sort of a halfway hospital, halfway jail... Listen, I can pick an alkie with one eye shut. You're an alkie. You'll come back. They all do. [gesturing toward other patients] Him, for instance. He shows up every month — just like the gas bill. And the one there with the glasses — another repeater. This is his forty-fifth trip. A big executive in the advertising business. A lovely fellow. Been coming here since 1927 — good ol' Prohibition days. Say, you should have seen the joint then. This is nothing. Back then, we really had a turn-over. Standing-room only. Prohibition. That's what started most of these guys off. Whoopee!"

"It shrinks my liver, doesn't it, Nat? It pickles my kidneys, yes. But what does it do to my mind? It tosses the sandbags overboard so the balloon can soar. Suddenly, I'm above the ordinary. I'm competent, supremely competent. I'm walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. I'm one of the great ones. I'm Michelangelo, molding the beard of Moses. I'm Van Gogh, painting pure sunlight. I'm Horowitz, playing the Emperor Concerto. I'm John Barrymore before the movies got him by the throat. I'm Jesse James and his two brothers — all three of 'em. I'm W. Shakespeare. And out there it's not Third Avenue any longer: it's the Nile, Nat, the Nile — and down it moves the barge of Cleopatra."

"One hundred days and in Matthew Garth's heart a growing fear that there was no railroad..."

"Shelley Winters - Dance Hall Girl in Wagon Train"

"Davison Clark - Mr. Meeker"

"Ivan Parry - Bunk Kenneally"

"Hank Worden - Simms Reeves"

"Paul Fix - Teeler Yacey"

"Chief Yowlachie - Quo"

"Harry Carey Jr. - Dan Latimer"

"Noah Beery Jr. - Buster McGee"

"John Ireland - Cherry Valance"

"Harry Carey - Mr. Melville"

"Coleen Gray - Fen"

"Walter Brennan - Nadine Groot"

"Joanne Dru - Tess Millay"

"Montgomery Clift - Matthew 'Matt' Garth"

"John Wayne - Thomas Dunson"

"Mr. Melville: There's three times in a man's life when he has a right to yell at the moon: when he marries, when his children come, and when he finishes a job he had to be crazy to start."

"Simms Reeves: Plantin' and readin', plantin' and readin'. Fill a man full of lead and stick him in the ground and then read words at him. Why, when you killed a man, why try to read the Lord in as a partner on the job?"

"Title card: Among the annals of the great state of Texas may be found the story of the first drive on the famous Chisholm Trail. A story of one of the great cattle herds of the world, of a man and a boy - - Thomas Dunson and Matthew Garth, the story of the Red River D."

"And history was written that day in Abilene, August 14, 1865, a day that marked completion of the first drive on the Chisholm Trail. Excitement and wild hilarity greeted the trail weary men and cattle as they poured into..."

"The days became longer, sleep was at a premium, hard work became harder and Dunson became a tyrant. After three weeks, they reached San Sabo. Here at last was water and a place to rest tired muscles and sore aching bones."

"To Dunson it was just a job, a big job. Ever north they drove ten thousand cattle crawling through hot, dry country and by the end of the first two weeks they had covered over one hundred and sixty miles. Every mile had taken its toll --- quietly."

"And that was the meeting of a boy with a cow and a man with a bull and the beginning of a great herd. In search for land they traveled South through Texas, across arable and promising land, but weighed it and they found it wanting. So on they went on through the Panhandle ever southward seeking...past the Pecos...nearing the Rio Grande..."

"In the year 1851, Thomas Dunson accompanied by a friend, Nadine Groot, left St. Louis and joined a wagon train headed for California. Three weeks on the trail found them near the northern border of Texas. The land to the South looked good to..."

"I'm scared too. That's why I'm talking because it's the best thing to do when you feel that way. Just talk and keep on talking...I talk to myself even if I have to sit in front of a mirror and talk...You can talk to me. I'm right here. It would help. Oh please, you can tell me to mind my own business if you'd like. And if it would help any, you can hit me, like I did you right across the mouth. But it would be good for you to talk, and I'd like to talk to you...Please, I'd really like to talk to ya."

"[to Matt] I asked you before why you were so mad. Is it, is it because your cattle, the cattle Cherry told me about, might run off? Or maybe, maybe you don't like the idea of helping, helping a bunch of women."

"[to Matt] What are you so mad about? I asked you why you're angry. Is it because - because some of your men might get hurt, killed maybe?"

"[to Matt] But your heart's soft. Too soft. It may get you hurt some day."

"How can a man sleep with Indians out ahead and him behind us?"

"Which would you rather have? What's behind, or what might be ahead?"

"I've been wondering too. The way he looked when we left him. It all happened so fast. I hadn't...I hadn't started out...I couldn't let him hang Teeler and Laredo...I don't know. He was wrong. I hope I'm right. I hope there's a railroad in Abilene."

"It was all burnin', only Indians around, just all burnin' and smokin', smellin'. They were burnin' everything. I can see it. It's plain. I can see it. It was burnin' the wagons. People was screamin'."

"It's all right. For fourteen years, I've been scared, but it's gonna be all right."

"[to Bunk] Your sweet tooth is almost as bad as having a whiskey tongue or liking a woman."

"[to Bunk] I could take the end of your nose off just as easy. A man in your age stealin' sugar!"

"[about Matt and Cherry] They was having some fun - peculiar kind of fun, sizing each other up for the future. Them two's gonna tangle for certain and when they do, it ain't gonna be pretty because they got a thousand miles to do it in."

"Never liked seein' strangers. This is 'cause no stranger ever good news'd me."

"Why do Indians always want to be burnin' up good wagons?"

"Colonel, me and Dunson...well, it's me and Dunson."

"If I was you, Colonel, I'd ponder on lettin' him be. He's a mighty set man when his mind's made up. Even you can't change him. Now he'll be headin' South. Mind he don't stomp on you on the way out."

"[to Matt] Go on, draw. I said 'DRAW'! [Long pause] Then I'll make ya. You're soft! Won't anything make a man out of ya?! [He seizes Matt's gun from his holster and throws it away] You once told me never to take your gun away from ya! [He hits Matt in the face several times] You yellow-bellied, chicken-livered..."

"All right. Anybody else? Say it now, 'cause I don't want ever to hear it again. I don't like quitters, especially when they're not good enough to finish what they start. Now go on! Speak up! Say it and you can join your friends here..."

"[to Bunk] You started all this...we're three or four hundred head short and you killed Dan Latimer...stealin' sugar like a kid. Well, they whip kids to teach 'em better."

"Well, we start tomorrow. We're goin' to Missouri with ten thousand head. Most of you men have come back to Texas from the war. You came back to nothing. You find your homes gone, your cattle scattered, and your land stolen by carpetbaggers. Well there's no money and no work because there's no market for beef in the South. But there is in Missouri. So we're goin' to Missouri...Cumberland didn't make it. No one else has. That's the reason I'm here. I want you all to know what you're up against. You probably already know, but I want to make sure you do. We got a thousand miles to go. Ten miles a day'll be good. Fifteen will be luck. It'll be dry country, dry wells when we get to 'em. There'll be wind, rain. There's gonna be Indian Territory - how bad I don't know. When we get to Missouri, there'll be border gangs. It's gonna be a fight all the way. But we'll get there. Nobody has to come along. We'll still have a job for ya when we get back. Now remember this! Every man who signs on for this drive agrees to finish it. There'll be no quittin' along the way, not by me and not by you! There's no hard feelings if you don't want to go. But just let me know now."