Harley Sullivan Quotes in The Cheyenne Social Club (1970)

John O'Hanlan: How much money do you want, Harley?

Harley Sullivan: Fifteen or twenty dollars ought to do me.

John O'Hanlan: What do you need it for?

Harley Sullivan: Things.

John O'Hanlan: Well, what kind of things?

Harley Sullivan: Just-just things. You know, like a drink of whiskey if I wanted it, or a new shirt or something.

John O'Hanlan: You already have two shirts. You don't want to wear but one of them at a time unless it's winter.

Harley Sullivan: There you go thinking like a Republican again.

John O'Hanlan: Well, you don't bring up politics while you're borrowing money, Harley. It ain't seemly!

Harley Sullivan: Ain't you gonna give notice you're quitting?

John O'Hanlan: I did when I signed on.

Harley Sullivan: I've eaten mighty good food in my life, but this weren't part of it.

Cook: Yeah, well, I ain't heard no complaints from none of the others.

Harley Sullivan: Yeah, well, they ain't as well-bred as I am.

Harley Sullivan: I remember when I was about twelve years old. My daddy asked me, he says, "What do you want to be when you grow up, Little Harley?" And like a damn fool, I said a cowboy. I've been making wrong moves ever since.

Harley Sullivan: I thought you know me better than that, John, after all the years we rode together.

John O'Hanlan: Well, I guess it just goes to prove that you never really know a man until the chips are down and you need him the most.

Harley Sullivan: I've never known it before, John, but a good gunfight sure makes a man hungry.

Harley Sullivan: Then there was my cousin, Jim. He sure was a fine figure of a man... but he fell to pieces when he got married. He got fat, his hair started fallin' out, his teeth went bad. The worse lookin' he got, the better lookin' she got. I mean, she weren't no vampire - nothing like that, at leastways nobody could prove it - but, Lord of Mercy, the worse lookin' he got, the better lookin' she got... until there wasn't nothing much left of him... and she went off back east somewhere and took up with a stone mason.

John O'Hanlan: I never knew you were married.

Harley Sullivan: Well, John, it ain't something I like to talk about, but I was married once. And once is enough for any man. You can't smoke, chew, dip, drink, scratch in the parlor, or cuss. When you leave the house, they ask you where'd you go. And when you come home, they ask you where have you been. And right now with you, it is just like when I was married.

John O'Hanlan: Why, how is that, Harley?

Harley Sullivan: Well, John, when a woman's talking to you, you can be pretty sure that she thinks she's in control. And when she's not talking to you, you can be pretty certain you're in control.

Harley Sullivan: Did I ever tell ya how my Uncle Charlie got stoved up?

John O'Hanlan: No, Harley.

Harley Sullivan: His home set right out in the prarie. One day he went in the outhouse and got caught right in the middle of a stampede. When he went in there wasn't a cow in sight. A few minutes late 365 longhorns ran over him. Broke him up something terrrible. That was nineteen years ago and he's still constipated.

Harley Sullivan: I remember one winter - it was almost as cold as this down in the south of Arkansas. It got to be so cold down there that winter that just about every female in the county came up pregnant in the spring. All the following summer and fall the men and boys were praying for another cold winter.

John O'Hanlan: Harley, this is more money than I ever dreamed! Do-do-do you know what I can do with this much money?

Harley Sullivan: We passed some nice looking saloons.

John O'Hanlan: Will you tell Mr. Willowby I would like to talk to him?

Harley Sullivan: He's still in the Doc's office.

John O'Hanlan: I didn't know he was sick.

Harley Sullivan: He weren't until you started that fight. He was hit in the face with a piano stool, so they say. I hear that saloon looks like it was in the path of a buffalo stampede.

John O'Hanlan: All for a good cause, Harley. All for Texas.

Harley Sullivan: What kind of business you figure your brother left you?

John O'Hanlan: Well, the letter don't say - but that's just like a lawyer. They don't tell you no more than it takes to confuse you. But it's a... something called the Cheyenne Social Club.

Harley Sullivan: Take Helen. She had flame red hair, pitch black eyes, ruby lips and no teeth - but talk about a body! She could straddle two horses at the same time. I went with her until I found out she dipped snuff. There's something awful unfemale about a snuff dipper - don't you think so, John?

John O'Hanlan: Harley, with this much money, I can... I can... I can... Heh! What would you do?

Harley Sullivan: John, if I had that much money and already had a business, I guess I'd just live high on the hog for as long as it lasted.

John O'Hanlan: [Testily] That's not what a shrewd businessman would do, Harley!

Harley Sullivan: You asked me what I'd do!

John O'Hanlan: That was my first mistake!

Harley Sullivan: [Commenting on the whore house] Place is busier than a Kansas City stockyard!

Harley Sullivan: How ya doin'?

John O'Hanlan: I never felt better glued together!

Harley Sullivan: John, you're nickel-plated, but you can be rougher on folks than an Indian haircut.

Harley Sullivan: Do you know how to make Indian whiskey, John?

John O'Hanlan: No, Harley.

Harley Sullivan: Well, you take a barrel of Missouri River water and a couple of gallons of alcohol and some strychnine to make them crazy, and tobacco to make them sick. An Indian wouldn't figure it was whiskey unless it made him sick. Add a few bars of soap to put a head on it and then a half-pound or so of red pepper to give it a kick. Put some tumbleweed in, boil it until it turns brown, and that's Indian whiskey.

John O'Hanlan: Harley, I want... want you to do me a favor. Don't ever tell anyone here in Cheyenne I voted Democratic. You'll do that for me, won't you?

Harley Sullivan: If you say so.

John O'Hanlan: Thank you.

Harley Sullivan: John, you don't mind if I still vote Democratic, do you?

John O'Hanlan: Just so long as you're not seen with me when you do it. Be bad for business.