Jack Thornton Quotes in Call of the Wild (1935)

Jack Thornton: You know, it's customary up here, Mrs. Blake, for everyone to pitch in and do their share. You've been with us for two days and up to now done nothing but sit around and look nasty. Can you cook?

Claire Blake: Yes, I'm considered a very excellent cook.

Jack Thornton: How about giving these beans the benefit of your talent.

Claire Blake: I'll do nothing to help you! I'm your prisoner, and since you seem to want me with you, you'll take care of me.

Jack Thornton: Want you? We just had an attack of insanity and decided to keep you from committing suicide. A very bad idea, come to think of it.

Shorty Hoolihan: Gee, I wonder what it's going to be like having things instead of wishing for 'em.

Claire Blake: It's not nearly as much fun.

Jack Thornton: You're wrong, Claire. Wishing never got anybody anyplace. It's owning something that counts and taking it when you can't get it any other way... that's all right too. It's the law up here... the law of the Klondike. If there is something you need, grab it! Take it away from the other guy. It's a good law. It works.

Claire Blake: No, it only works when you deserve to have what you take. Otherwise, it's stealing. Perhaps that particular commandment isn't respected up here.

Jack Thornton: They all get broken. That one gets splintered.

Jack Thornton: Me? I'll take bourbon. It kills you slower, but a lot more pleasant like.

[Shorty is followed into the cabin by a heavily laden Native American woman]

Jack Thornton: What's that?

Shorty Hoolihan: That's our new cook.

Jack Thornton: Where'd you get it?

Shorty Hoolihan: I won it in a crap game.

Jack Thornton: Look here, Smith. Why can't we do business?

Mr. Smith: I've always been open to an honest proposition, Mr. Thornton.

Jack Thornton: We'll give you the claim - all of it. You can have what gold we've got. But leave us some way of getting out of here. The winter snows are coming on.

Mr. Smith: [impatiently] My dear man, you call that a business proposition? We already *have* the mine, and the gold is ours by right of, how shall I put it?... By right of conquest. Do you mind if we don't argue the point any more?

Jack Thornton: [Just having watched three men drown, weighed down and trapped underwater by bags of gold they had tied around themselves] Well, they wanted gold. Now they got it.

Jack Thornton: Did I ever tell you about my grandpa? Died when he was a hundred and six.

Bartender: What interrupted his youth?

Jack Thornton: He quit drinking.

Jack Thornton: Seven or eight hundred dollars is hard to get... Ah, but we'll get it if we have to get a knife and stick somebody into it!

Jack Thornton: They usually get a long better when they do as they're told.

Claire Blake: I wouldn't presume to teach you feminine psychology, but I might add, very humbly of course...

Jack Thornton: Yeah?

Claire Blake: That if a woman is asked to do something, she's more apt to obey than when she's commanded.

Jack Thornton: I'm sorry I was so rough.

Claire Blake: Well, I... I'm sorry I was so unpleasant.

Shorty Hoolihan: Mmm... I'm sorry that I can't think of a thing to be sorry about.