True Grit Quotes: Smart and Strong

LeBoeuf: Well, I will throw in with you and your marshal.
Mattie Ross: No. Marshal Cogburn and I are fine.
LeBoeuf: It’ll be to our mutual advantage. Your marshal I presume knows the Territory; I know Chaney. It is at least a two-man job taking him alive.
Mattie Ross: When Chaney is taken he is coming back to Fort Smith to hang. I am not having him go to Texas to hang for shooting some senator.
LeBoeuf: It is not important where he hangs, is it?
Mattie Ross: It is to me. Is it to you?
LeBoeuf: Well, it means a great deal of money to me. It’s been many months’ work.
Mattie Ross: Well, I’m sorry that you are paid piecework not on wages, and that you have been eluded the winter long by a halfwit.
[LeBoeuf stands]
LeBoeuf: You give out very little sugar with your pronouncements. While I sat there watching you I gave some thought to stealing a kiss, though you are very young and sick and unattractive to boot, but now I have a mind to give you five or six good licks with my belt.
Mattie Ross: Well, one would be as unpleasant as the other. If you wet your comb, it might tame that cowlick.

[Mattie’s reading the contents of a letter from her lawyer]
Dagget: [voice over] Mattie, I wish you would leave these matters entirely to me, or at the very least do me the courtesy of consulting me before entering such agreements. I am not scolding you, but I am saying your headstrong ways will lead you into a tight corner one day. I trust the enclosed document will let you conclude your business and return to Yell County. Yours, J. Noble Dagget.

Mattie Ross: I was as bad yesterday as you look today. I was forced to share a bed with Grandma Turner.
Col. Stonehill: I am not acquainted with Grandma Turner. If she’s a resident of this city it does not surprise me that she carries disease.
[he coughs]
Col. Stonehill: This malarial place has ruined my health as it has my finances. I owe you money.
Mattie Ross: You have not traded poorly.
Col. Stonehill: Oh, certainly not. I am paying you for a horse I do not possess and have bought back a string of useless ponies which I cannot sell again.
Mattie Ross: You are forgetting the gray horse.
Col. Stonehill: Crowbait!
Mattie Ross: You are looking at the thing in the wrong light.
Col. Stonehill: I am looking at it in the light of God’s eternal truth.
Mattie Ross: Your illness is putting you down in the dumps. You will soon find a good buyer for the ponies.
Col. Stonehill: Oh, I have a tentative offer of ten dollars per head from the Pfitzer Soap Works of Little Rock.
Mattie Ross: Well, it would be a shame to destroy such spirited horseflesh.
Col. Stonehill: So it would. I am confident the deal will fall through.
Mattie Ross: Well, look here. I need a pony and I will pay ten dollars for one of them.
Col. Stonehill: No. That was lot price. No, no. It…wait a minute. Are we trading again?

[Mattie shakes Cogburn to wake him up]
Mattie Ross: Mr. Cogburn, it is I. Mattie Ross, your employer.
[Cogburn wakes up in shock and looks at her]
Mattie Ross: How long till you’re ready to go?
Rooster Cogburn: Go where?
Mattie Ross: Into the Indian Territory. In pursuit of Tom Chaney.
Rooster Cogburn: Oh. You’re the bereaved girl with stories of El Dorado. How much money you got there?
Mattie Ross: I said fifty dollars to retrieve Chaney. You did not believe me?
Rooster Cogburn: Well, I did not know. You are a hard one to figure.

Mattie Ross: How long for you to make ready to depart?
[Cogburn starts to fumble with his cigarette fixings]
Rooster Cogburn: Well now, hold on , sis. I remember your offer, I do not remember agreeing to it. If I’m to go up against Ned Pepper I will need a hundred dollars. That much I can tell you. A hundred dollars!
[Mattie takes the cigarettes fixings from his hands and start to roll his cigarette for him]
Rooster Cogburn: To retrieve your man, a hundred dollars. I will take that fifty dollars in advance. It’ll be…for expenses.
Mattie Ross: You are trying to take advantage of me.
Rooster Cogburn: I’m giving you the children’s rate. I’m not a sharper, I’m an old man sleeping in a rope bed in a room behind a Chinese grocery. I have nothing.
Mattie Ross: You want to be kept in whiskey.
Rooster Cogburn: I don’t need to buy that, I confiscate it. I am an officer of the court.
[she hands him the finished cigarette]
Rooster Cogburn: Thank you. A hundred dollars. That’s the rate.
[he starts putting on his trousers]
Mattie Ross: I shall not niggle. Can we depart this afternoon?
Rooster Cogburn: We?! You’re not going. That is no part of it.
Mattie Ross: Well, you have misjudged me if you think I am silly enough to give you fifty dollars and watch you simply ride off.
Rooster Cogburn: I am a bonded U.S. marshal!
Mattie Ross: That weighs but little with me. I will see the thing done.

[he walks into the hanging skinned ducks]
Rooster Cogburn: Goddamn ducks! I can’t go after Ned Pepper and a band of hard men and look after a baby at the same time.
Mattie Ross: I am not a baby.
Rooster Cogburn: I won’t be stoppin’ at boarding houses were there’s warm beds and hot grub on the table. I’ll be traveling fast and eatin’ light. What little sleeping is done will take place on the ground.
Mattie Ross: Well, I have slept out at night before. Papa took me and Little Frank coon huntin’ last summer on the Petit Jean. We were in the woods all night. We were sat around a big fire and Yarnell told ghost stories. We had a good time.
Rooster Cogburn: Coon hunting! This ain’t no coon hunt.
Mattie Ross: It is the same idea as a coon hunt.
Rooster Cogburn: It don’t come within forty miles of being a coon hunt!
Mattie Ross: You are just trying to make your work sound harder than it is. Here is the money. Now, I aim to get Tom Chaney and if you are not game I will find somebody who is game. All I have heard out of you so far is talk. I know you can drink whiskey and snore and spit and wallow in filth and bemoan your station. The rest has been braggadocio. They told me you had grit and that is why I came to you. I am not paying for talk. I can get all the talk I need and more at the Monarch Boarding House.
[Rooster stares at her]
Rooster Cogburn: Leave the money. Meet me here at seven o’clock tomorrow morning and we’ll begin our coon hunt.

[as Mattie is getting ready to meet Cogburn]
Mattie Ross: [voice over] Dearest Mother. I am about to embark on a great adventure. I have learned that Tom Chaney has fled into the wild and I shall assist the authorities in pursuit. You know that Papa would want me to be firm in the right as he always was, so do not fear on my account. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. The author of all things watches over me. And I have a fine horse. Kiss little Frankie for me and pinch Violet’s cheek. My Papa’s death will soon be avenged. I am off for the Choctaw Nation.

Mattie Ross: Where is Marshal Cogburn?
Mr. Lee: Went away. Left this.
[he hands her a note and Mattie opens the note and reads]
Rooster Cogburn: [voice over] Here inside is a train ticket for your return home. Use it. By
the time you read this I will be across the river in the Indian nation. Pursuit would be futile. I will return with your man Chaney. Leave me to my work. Reuben Cogburn.

[as Mattie emerges from the River she has crossed on her horse to reach Cogburn]
Rooster Cogburn: That is quite a horse. I will give you ten dollars for him.
Mattie Ross: From the money you stole from me?
Rooster Cogburn: That was not stolen. I’m out for your man.
Mattie Ross: I was to accompany you. If I do not, there is no agreement and my money was stolen.
LeBoeuf: Marshal, put this child back on the ferry. We have a long road, and time is a-wasting.
Mattie Ross: If I go back and it’s to the office of the U.S. marshals to report the theft of my money. And futile, Marshal Cogburn “Pursuit would be futile”? It’s not spelt f-u-d-e-l.

[LeBoeuf grabs Mattie offer her horse, throws her to the ground]
LeBoeuf: It is time for your spanking.
[he begins to spank her]
LeBoeuf: Now you will do as the grown-ups say! Or I will get myself a birch switch and stripe your leg!
Mattie Ross: Are you going to let him do this, Marshal?
Rooster Cogburn: No, I don’t believe I will. Put your switch away, LeBoeuf.
LeBoeuf: I aim to finish what I started.
Rooster Cogburn: That will be the biggest mistake you ever made, you Texas brush-popper!
[LeBoeuf hears the sound of a gun being cocked and stops beating Mattie, he flings the switch aside and walks to his horse]
LeBoeuf: Hoorawed by a little girl.

[LeBoeuf and Mattie are sitting around a large fire at night]
LeBoeuf: I am not accustomed to so large a fire. In Texas, we’ll make do with a fire of little more than twigs or buffalo chips, heat the night’s ration of beans. And, it is Ranger policy never to make your camp in the same place as your cook fire. Very imprudent to make your
presence known in unsettled country.
[Cogburn enters with an armload of wood and dumps the wood on the fire]

LeBoeuf: How do you know that Bagby will have intelligence?
Rooster Cogburn: He has a store.
LeBoeuf: That makes him an authority on movements in the Territory?
Rooster Cogburn: We have entered a wild place and anyone coming in, wantin’ any kind of supply, cannot pick and choose his portal.
LeBoeuf: That is a piece of foolishness. All the snakes are asleep this time of year.
Rooster Cogburn: They have been known to wake up.
Mattie Ross: Well, let me have a rope too.
Rooster Cogburn: A snake would not bother you. You are too little and bony. You should fetch water for the mornin’, put it by the fire. The creek’s gonna ice over tonight.
Mattie Ross: I am not going down there again. If you want any more water you can fetch it yourself.
LeBoeuf: You’re lucky to be traveling in a place where a spring is so handy. In my country you can ride for days and see no ground water. I have lapped filthy water from a hoof print and was glad to have it.
Rooster Cogburn: If I ever meet one of you Texas waddies who says he had never drank water out of a horse track I think I’ll shake his hand, give him a Daniel Webster cigar.
LeBoeuf: You don’t believe it?
Rooster Cogburn: Oh, I believed it the first twenty-five times I heard it. Maybe…maybe it is true. Maybe lappin’ water off the ground is Ranger policy.
LeBoeuf: You are getting ready to show your ignorance now, Cogburn. I don’t mind a little personal chaffin’ but I won’t hear anything against the Ranger troop from a man like you.

Rooster Cogburn: How long you boys been mounted on sheep down there?
[LeBoeuf sits forward in anger]
LeBoeuf: My white Appaloosa still be galloping when that big American stud of yours is winded and collapsed. Now make another joke about it. You are only trying to put on a show for this girl Mattie, who what you must think is a keen tongue.
Rooster Cogburn: This is like women talking.
LeBoeuf: Yes, that is the way! Make me out foolish in this girl’s eyes.
Rooster Cogburn: I think she has got you pretty well figured.
[Mattie breaks the long silence that follows]
Mattie Ross: Would you two like to hear the story of “The Midnight Caller”? One of you is gonna have to be “The Caller” and I will tell you what to say, and I will do all the other parts myself.

Mattie Ross: Where is Mr. LeBoeuf?
Rooster Cogburn: Down by the creek performing his necessaries.
Mattie Ross: Well, Marshal Cogburn, I welcome the chance for a private parley. I gather that you and Mr. LeBoeuf have come to some…some sort of agreement and as your employer I believe I have a right to know the particulars.
Rooster Cogburn: The particulars is that we bring Chaney down to the magistrate in San Saba Texas where they have a considerable reward on offer. Which we split.
Mattie Ross: I did not want him brought to Texas, to have a Texas punishment administered for a Texas crime. That was not our agreement.
Rooster Cogburn: What you want is to have him caught and punished.
Mattie Ross: I want him to know that he is being punished for killing my father.
Rooster Cogburn: Oh, you can let him know that. You can tell him to his face. You can spit on him, make him eat sand out of the road. I’ll hold him down. Well, if you want I will flay the flesh off the soles of his feet, find you an Indian pepper you can rub into the wound. Isn’t that a hundred dollars’ value?
Mattie Ross: No, it is not. When I have bought and paid for something I will have my way. Why do you think I am paying you if not to have my way?
Rooster Cogburn: It’s time for you to learn you cannot have your way in every little particular. You find I fail to satisfy your terms I will return your money at the end of this expedition.
Mattie Ross: Little Blackie and I are riding back to the U.S. marshals’ office. This is fraud!
Rooster Cogburn: Oh, Goddamn it!

LeBoeuf: What’s goin’ on?
Rooster Cogburn: This is a business conversation.
LeBoeuf: Is that what you call it. It sounds to me like you are still being hoorawed by a little girl.
Rooster Cogburn: Did you say hoorawed?
LeBoeuf: That was the word.
Mattie Ross: There is no hoorawing in it. My agreement with the Marshal antedates yours. It has the force of law.
LeBoeuf: The force of law! This man is a notorious thumper! He rode by the light of the moon with Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson!
Rooster Cogburn: That men was patriots, Texas trash!
LeBoeuf: They murdered women and children in Lawrence, Kansas.
Rooster Cogburn: That’s a God damned lie! What army was you in, mister?
LeBoeuf: I was at Shreveport first with Kirby-Smith, then…
Rooster Cogburn: Yeah? What side was you on?
LeBoeuf: I was in the army of Northern Virginia, Cogburn, and I don’t have to hang my head when I say it!
Rooster Cogburn: If you had served with Captain Quantrill…
LeBoeuf: Captain? Captain Quantrill indeed!
Rooster Cogburn: Best let this go, LeBoeuf!
LeBoeuf: Captain of what?
Rooster Cogburn: Good, then! There are not sufficient dollars in the state of Texas to make it worth my while to listen to your opinions. Our agreement is nullified.
LeBoeuf: That suits me!
[LeBoeuf turns his horse to leave]
Rooster Cogburn: It’s each man for himself!
LeBoeuf: Congratulations, Cogburn. You’ve graduated from marauder to wet nurse.
[as he’s riding away]
LeBoeuf: Adios!

[after Cogburn has met with Bagby]
Mattie Ross: Has Chaney been here?
Rooster Cogburn: No. But Coke Hayes was, two days ago. Coke runs with Lucky Ned. He bought supplies, with this.
[he flips a coin to Mattie]
Mattie Ross: Well, this is Papa’s gold piece! Tom Chaney, here we come!
Rooster Cogburn: Well, it is not the world’s only California gold piece.
Mattie Ross: They are rare, here.
Rooster Cogburn: They are rare. But if it is Chaney’s, it could just as easily mean that Lucky Ned and his gang fell upon him, as that he fell in with them. Chaney could be a corpse.
Mattie Ross: That would be a bitter disappointment, Marshal. What do we do?
Rooster Cogburn: Oh, pursue. Ned’s unfinished business for the marshals anyhow, and when we have him we’ll also have Chaney, or learn the whereabouts of his body. Bagby didn’t know which way they went, but now that we know they come through here, they couldn’t be going but one of two ways; heading north toward the Winding Stair Mountains, pushing further west. I suspect north. More to rob.

[to Mattie whilst riding along slowly]
Rooster Cogburn: I bought an eating place called The Green Frog. Started calling myself Burroughs, but I drank and picked up and my wife did not care for the company of my river
friends. She decided to go back to her first husband, he was a clerk in a hardware store. Uh, she said, “Goodbye, Reuben, a love for decency does not abide in you.” Imagine a divorced woman talking about decency. I told her, “Goodbye, Nola. Hope that little nail-selling bastard keeps you happy this time.” She took my boy with her too. Uh, he never cared for me anyway. I guess I did speak awful rough to him, I did not mean nothing by it. You would not want to see a clumsier child than Horace. I bet he broke forty cups.

[Cogburn gazes at the body of the man hanging from the tree]
Rooster Cogburn: Is it Chaney?
Mattie Ross: I would not recognize the soles of his feet.
Rooster Cogburn: Well, you’ll have to clamber up and look. I’m too old and too fat.

[whilst Mattie is climbing up the tree to look at the hanging body]
Rooster Cogburn: At The Green Frog it had one billiard table, served ladies and men both, mostly men. Tried runnin’ it myself for a while, but couldn’t keep good help and I never did learn how to buy meat. Is it him?
Mattie Ross: I believe not.
Rooster Cogburn: No! Cut him down!
Mattie Ross: Why?
Rooster Cogburn: I might know him.
[Mattie reluctantly climbs further to get closer to the body]
Rooster Cogburn: That’s when I went out to the staked plains of Texas. Shoot buffalo with Vernon Shaftoe and a Flathead Indian named Olly. Well, the Mormons, well they run Shaftoe out of Great Salt Lake City, don’t ask me what for. Call it a misunderstanding and leave it go at that. Well, big shaggies about all gone now. Damned shame. I would give three dollars right now for a pickled buffalo tongue.

[Mattie starts cutting the rope]
Mattie Ross: Why did they hang him so high?
Rooster Cogburn: Well, I don’t know. Possibly in the belief it would make him more dead.
[the rope snaps and the body drops, Cogburn turns the body over to look at it]
Rooster Cogburn: I do not know this man.

[after the Indian has taken the body of the hanged man]
Mattie Ross: Why is he taking the hanged man? Did he know him?
Rooster Cogburn: He did not. But it is a dead body, possibly worth something in trade.

Rooster Cogburn: Well my second wife, Edna, she got the notion she wanted me to be a lawyer. Bought this heavy book called Daniels on Negotiable Instruments, set me to reading it. Never could get a grip on it, I was happy enough to set it aside, leave Texas. There ain’t six trees between there and Canada, nothin’ else grows but has stickers on it. That’s when…
[they hear distant gunshot and stop riding]
Rooster Cogburn: I knew it.
Mattie Ross: Knew what?
Rooster Cogburn: We’re being followed. I asked that Indian to signal with a shot if someone was on our trail.
Mattie Ross: Should we be concerned, Marshal?
Rooster Cogburn: No. It’s Mr. LeBoeuf, using us as bird dogs in hopes of cuttin’ in once we’ve flushed the prey.
Mattie Ross: Well, perhaps we could double back over our tracks, and confuse the trail in a clever way.
Rooster Cogburn: No, we will wait right here, offer our friend a warm hello, ask him where he is going.

[a rider wearing a bear’s skin and head rides towards them]
Rooster Cogburn: You are not LeBoeuf.
Bear Man: My name is Forster. I practice dentistry in the Nation. Also, veterinary arts. And medicine, on those humans that will sit still for it.
[indicating to the corpse on the horse that’s behind the Bear Man]
Rooster Cogburn: You have your work cut out for you there.
Bear Man: Traded for him with an Indian, who said he came by him honestly. I gave up two dental mirrors and a bottle of expectorant. Do either of you need medical attention?
Rooster Cogburn: No. It’s late, fixing to get cold. Do you know of anywhere to take shelter?
Bear Man: I have my bearskin. You might want to head over to the Original Greaser Bob’s. He notched a dugout into a hollow along the Carrillon River. And if you ride the river you won’t fail to see it. Greaser Bob, the Original Greaser Bob, is hunting north of the picket wire and would not begrudge its use.
Rooster Cogburn: Much obliged.
[the Bear Man tilts his head to indicate the corpse behind him]
Bear Man: I have taken his teeth. I will entertain an offer for the rest of him.

[after Cogburn and Mattie have managed to get inside the cabin]
Emmett Quincy: You said it was a man on the roof. I thought it was Potter.
Rooster Cogburn: You was always dumb, Quincy, and remain true to form.
[he stirs a pot with a wooden spoon]
Rooster Cogburn: This here’s an awful lot of sofky. You boys looking for company?
Emmett Quincy: That is our supper and breakfast both. I like a big breakfast.
Moon (The Kid): Sofky always cooks up bigger than you think.
Rooster Cogburn: Oh, and a good store of whiskey here as well. What are you boys up to, outside of cookin’ banquets?
Emmett Quincy: We’re just having our supper. We didn’t know who was out there weather like this. It might have been some crazy man. Anyone can say he is a marshal.
Moon (The Kid): My leg hurts.
Rooster Cogburn: I’ll bet it does.