Susanna Drake: Johnny, I had to come back. I'm going to have a baby.

Susanna Drake: That 4th of July race... what happens when you win?
John Wickliff Shawnessy: Well, according to a friend of mine, if I win, a beautiful girl will place a garland of oak leaves on my sun-colored locks.
Susanna Drake: I'd like to be that girl.
John Wickliff Shawnessy: Maybe it can be arranged?
Susanna Drake: Oh, it can be arranged, all right. *I'll* arrange it.

T.D. Shawnessy: [to Flash, who is drinking beer in public] Flash Perkins, don't you know that your body is the temple of the spirit, and you defile and pollute it with that Devil's brew you have there?
Orville 'Flash' Perkins: [Nonchalantly] Why, if you say so, pappy...
T.D. Shawnessy: Why don't you come 'round to our next temperance rally. Come 'round and take the Total Abstinence Pledge.
Orville 'Flash' Perkins: Why, pappy, I'll take that pledge right now.
T.D. Shawnessy: Orville, we want men to take that pledge only when they're sober.
Orville 'Flash' Perkins: But if they're sober, what's the point in havin' them take the pledge?
[Everybody laughs]

T.D. Shawnessy: War is the most monstrous of man's illusions. Any idea worth anything is worth not fighting for.

John Wickliff Shawnessy: [On the riverboat with Susanna, visiting the South for the first time] You were right, Mrs. Shawnessy, I like your river. I really do. It even smells good.
Susanna Drake: I knew that you'd understand it. Which is more than most Yankees do. Now, that's something I don't understand. 'Cause all you have to do is go South once and you LOVE it!
John Wickliff Shawnessy: Well, to us Yankees, the South is not too easy to understand... You ever read "Uncle Tom's Cabin"?
Susanna Drake: [Shocked] "Uncle Tom's Cabin"? Phoo... I haven't married an abolitionist, have I?
John Wickliff Shawnessy: That is the skeleton in my closet.
Susanna Drake: Now, you mustn't joke about it.
Susanna Drake: [Arranging a vast collection of dolls on her bed] Anyway, there's worse things than being an abolitionist.
John Wickliff Shawnessy: Like what?
Susanna Drake: Like having Negro blood in you. Isn't it funny? Just one little teeny drop and a person's all Negro. A person can't always tell, either.

John Wickliff Shawnessy: My students seem to enjoy creepin' up on me.
Nell Gaither: They're all in love with you.
John Wickliff Shawnessy: Teachers get fallen in love with. It's an occupational hazard.

Ellen Shawnessy: Did you ever hear your father's sermon on the evils of tobacco? Ends with a regular poem: "Some do it chew, and some do it smoke, while some it up their noses do poke."
John Wickliff Shawnessy: I do all three at the same time.

John Wickliff Shawnessy: [People are gathering in the town center] What's going on here?
Ellen Shawnessy: You haven't heard? They've attacked Fort Sumter. It means war sure as anything.
T.D. Shawnessy: I'm not so sure. Now, say what you will, Americans will never fight each other. We'll settle our difficulties peacefully.