Howard: If I were you boys, I wouldn't talk or even think about women. T'aint good for your health.

Howard: Now here's where we're bound for, hereabouts. Don't show properly whether there's mountains, swamp, or desert. That shows the makers of the map themselves don't know for sure. Once on the ground, all we gotta do is open our eyes and look around. Yes, and blow our noses, too. Believe it or not, I knew a fellow once who could smell gold like a jackass can smell water.

Howard: Say, answer me this one, will you? Why is gold worth some twenty bucks an ounce?
Flophouse Bum: I don't know. Because it's scarce.
Howard: A thousand men, say, go searchin' for gold. After six months, one of them's lucky: one out of a thousand. His find represents not only his own labor, but that of nine hundred and ninety-nine others to boot. That's six thousand months, five hundred years, scramblin' over a mountain, goin' hungry and thirsty. An ounce of gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that went into the findin' and the gettin' of it.
Flophouse Bum: I never thought of it just like that.
Howard: Well, there's no other explanation, mister. Gold itself ain't good for nothing except making jewelry with and gold teeth.

Howard: Water's precious. Sometimes may be more precious than gold.

Howard: Without me, you two would die here, more miserable than rats.

[first lines]
Dobbs: Say buddy, will you stake a fellow Am...

[Howard eats, while Dobbs and Curtin snooze]
Howard: Hey you fellas, how 'bout some beans? You want some beans? Goin' through some mighty rough country tomorrow, you'd better have some beans.