Jesse Woodson James Quotes in Jesse James (1939)

Engineer: What you aimin' to do, pardner?

Jesse Woodson James: I ain't aimin' to do nuthin'. I'm doin' it. I'm holdin' up this train.

Engineer: The whole train?

Zerelda 'Zee' Cobb, later Zerelda 'Zee' James: If I could just think of some way to let you know how wrong you are.

Jesse Woodson James: No use, honey. It's just like I always told you: I hate the railroads... and when I hate, I've gotta do somethin' about it.

Major Rufus Cobb: That's the stuff! People ain't hating nowadays like they used to. They gettin' soft. I got to admit that I like a man that hauls off and hates good and hard. It's the lawyers - gol-dang it - it's the lawyers are messin' up the whole world! Why ten years ago, here in Liberty, we didn't have no lawyers and we got along fine. Man killed somebody, then somebody killed him, and the marshal shot 'em all and that was the end of it. But, look at it today: right here in Liberty we got hundreds of lawyers, thousands of 'em, as far as the eye can see: nothing but lawyers!

Zerelda 'Zee' Cobb, later Zerelda 'Zee' James: Uncle Rufe, there are only TWO lawyers in Liberty.

Major Rufus Cobb: Huh? Two? Is that all? Then they run around too much. Gol-dang it, I'm gonna write me an editorial about that.

Major Rufus Cobb: [he goes out into the newspaper office] Roy!

Roy: Yes, sir?

Major Rufus Cobb: Take an editorial on lawyers.

Roy: Liars?

Major Rufus Cobb: That'll do. We'll begin easy.

[he begins to dictate]

Major Rufus Cobb: Paragraph: If we are ever to have law and order in the West, the first thing we gotta do is take out all the lawyers and shoot 'em down like dogs.

[Jesse and Zee have come to the church to get married - the minister and the congregation react when he says he's Jesse James]

Jesse Woodson James: We don't want no trouble.

Minister: Trouble? Why, son, you're as welcome as rain to the flowers. Do you realize, boy, that I had a farm giving nine hundred bushels of corn... until that railroad had taken it from me? Why, I'd given up preaching... and was making an honest living off of the land, until that dad-swinged railroad swindled me out of my own home. By golly, son, do you know I had a big house... two barns... three outhouses... until that gold-danged railroad hornswoggled me!