Duke Mantee: Maybe you're right, pal.
Alan Squier: Oh, I'm eternally right. But what good does it do me?

Duke Mantee: You can talk sitting down; I seen ya' doing it.

Gabrielle Maple: Petrified forest is a lot of dead trees in the desert that have turned to stone. Here's a good specimen.
Alan Squier: So that was once a tree? Hmmm. Petrified forest, eh? Suitable haven for me. Well, perhaps that's what I'm destined to become, an interesting fossil for future study.

Alan Squier: Let there be killing. All this evening I've had a feeling of destiny closing in.

Alan Squier: So tell us Duke, what has your life been like?
Duke Mantee: You know the story.
Duke Mantee: Since I've been a grown up, I've spent most of my life in prison... I'll probably spend the rest of it dead.

Alan Squier: The trouble with me, Gabrielle, is I, I belong to a vanishing race. I'm one of the intellectuals.
Gabrielle Maple: That, that means you've got brains!
Alan Squier: Hmmm. Yes. Brains without purpose. Noise without sound, shape without substance.

Alan Squier: What's your story, Duke? What's your life been like?
Duke Mantee: You know the story. Most of my life in jail; the rest of it dead!

[Talking about signing his $5,000.00 life insurance policy over to Gabby]
Mrs. Edith Chisholm: You're in love with her, aren't you?
Alan Squier: Yes, I suppose I am. And not unreasonably. She has heroic stuff in her. She may be one of the immortal women of France. Another Joan of Arc, George Sand, Madame Curie, or Du Barry. I want to show her that I believe in her, and how else can I do it? Living, I'm worth nothing to her. Dead, I can buy her the tallest cathedrals, golden vineyards, and dancing in the streets. One well-directed bullet will accomplish all that, and it'll earn a measure of reflected glory for him that fired it and him that stopped it. This document will be my ticket to immortality. It'll inspire people to say of me, "There was an artist who died before his time." Will you do it, Duke?
Duke Mantee: I'll be glad to.