Ulysses Everett McGill Quotes in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

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Ulysses Everett McGill Quotes:

  • [Repeated line]

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Damn! We're in a tight spot!

  • Pete: Wait a minute. Who elected you leader of this outfit?

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Well Pete, I figured it should be the one with the capacity for abstract thought. But if that ain't the consensus view, then hell, let's put it to a vote.

    Pete: Suits me. I'm voting for yours truly.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Well I'm voting for yours truly too.

    [Everett and Pete look at Delmar for the deciding vote]

    Delmar O'Donnell: Okay... I'm with you fellas.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: What'd the devil give you for your soul, Tommy?

    Tommy Johnson: Well, he taught me to play this here guitar real good.

    Delmar O'Donnell: Oh son, for that you sold your everlasting soul?

    Tommy Johnson: Well, I wasn't usin' it.

  • Pomade Vendor: I can get the part from Bristol. It'll take two weeks, here's your pomade.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Two weeks? That don't do me no good.

    Pomade Vendor: Nearest Ford auto man's Bristol.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Hold on, I don't want this pomade. I want Dapper Dan.

    Pomade Vendor: I don't carry Dapper Dan, I carry Fop.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, I don't want Fop, goddamn it! I'm a Dapper Dan man!

    Pomade Vendor: Watch your language, young feller, this is a public market. Now if you want Dapper Dan, I can order it for you, have it in a couple of weeks.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, ain't this place a geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere!

  • [first lines]

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Say, any of you boys smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straitened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wanderin'?

  • Pete: You miserable little snake! You stole from my kin!

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Who was fixin' to betray us.

    Pete: You didn't know that at the time.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: So I borrowed it until I did know.

    Pete: That don't make no sense!

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Pete, it's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart.

  • [after the *FOUR* soggy bottom boys finish recording "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow"]

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Woo! Hot Damn, son I believe you did sell your soul to the devil.

    Lund: Woooooooo-wee. Boy, that was a miiiighty fine a-pickin' and a-singin'. I'll tell you what, you come on in here and sign these papers here and I'm a gonna you ten dollars a piece.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Uh, okay sir. But Murt and Aloysius will have to sign Xes as only four of us can write.

  • Tommy Johnson: I had to be up at that there crossroads last midnight, to sell my soul to the devil.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, ain't it a small world, spiritually speaking. Pete and Delmar just been baptized and saved. I guess I'm the only one that remains unaffiliated.

  • Pappy O'Daniel: And furthermore, by way of endorsing my candidacy, the Soggy Bottom Boys are gonna lead us all in a rousing chorus of "You Are My Sunshine."

    [Applause. Pappy turns away from the mike, towards Everett]

    Pappy O'Daniel: [no-nonsense] Ain't you, boys?

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Governor, it's one of our favorites.

    Pappy O'Daniel: Son... you're gonna go far.

  • Pete: I've always wondered, what's the devil look like?

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, there are all manner of lesser imps and demons, Pete, but the great Satan hisself is red and scaly with a bifurcated tail, and he carries a hay fork.

    Tommy Johnson: Oh, no. No, sir. He's white, as white as you folks, with empty eyes and a big hollow voice. He likes to travel around with a mean old hound. That's right.

  • Pete: Well I'll be a sonofabitch. Delmar's been saved.

    Delmar O'Donnell: Well that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher's done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting's my reward.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Delmar, what are you talking about? We've got bigger fish to fry.

    Delmar O'Donnell: The preacher says all my sins is warshed away, including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: I thought you said you was innocent of those charges?

    Delmar O'Donnell: Well I was lyin'. And the preacher says that that sin's been warshed away too. Neither God nor man's got nothin' on me now. C'mon in boys, the water is fine.

  • Delmar O'Donnell: Can't you see it, Everett? Them sirens did this to Pete. They loved him up and turned him into a... horny toad. Pete! Pete! Pete! Pete! Pete! Pete. It's me - Delmar. Everett...

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Delmar. What the...

    Delmar O'Donnell: What are we gonna do?

    Ulysses Everett McGill: I'm not sure that's Pete.

    Delmar O'Donnell: Of course it's Pete. Look at him.

  • Delmar O'Donnell: Care for some gopher?

    Ulysses Everett McGill: No thank you, Delmar. A third of a gopher would only arouse my appetite without beddin' 'er back down.

    Delmar O'Donnell: Oh, you can have the whole thing. Me and Pete already had one apiece. We ran across a whole... gopher village.

  • Pappy O'Daniel: Sounded to me like he was harboring a hateful grudge against the Soggy Bottom Boys on account of their rough and rowdy past. Looks like Homer Stokes is the kind of fellow who wants to cast the first stone.

    [boos]

    Pappy O'Daniel: Well, I'm with you folks. I'm a forgive-and-forgettin' Christian, and I say, if their rambunctiousness, and misdemeanoring, is behind them...

    [turns away from the mike, towards Everett]

    Pappy O'Daniel: [no-nonsense] It is, ain't it, boys?

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Uh, yes sir, it is.

  • Pete: The Preacher said it absolved us.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: For him, not for the law. I'm surprised at you, Pete, I gave you credit for more brains than Delmar.

    Delmar O'Donnell: But they was witnesses that seen us redeemed.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: That's not the issue Delmar. Even if that did put you square with the Lord, the State of Mississippi's a little more hard-nosed.

    [laughs]

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Baptism! You two are just dumber than a bag of hammers!

  • Delmar O'Donnell: You work for the railroad, Grampa?

    Blind Seer: I work for no man.

    Delmar O'Donnell: Got a name, do you?

    Blind Seer: I have no name.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, that right there may be the reason you've had difficulty findin' gainful employment. You see, in the mart of competitive commerce...

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: The treasure is still there boys, believe me.

    Delmar O'Donnell: But how'd he know about the treasure?

    Ulysses Everett McGill: I don't know Delmar. The blind are reputed to possess sensitivities compensating for their lack of sight, even to the point of developing paranormal psychic powers. Now, clearly seeing into the future would fall into neatly into that category; its not so surprising then that an organism deprived of its earthly vision...

    Pete: He said we wouldn't get get it. He said we wouldn't get the treasure we seek on account of our ob-stac-les.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Well what the hell does he know, he's just an ignorant old man?

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, you lying... unconstant... succubus!

    Vernon T. Waldrip: Whoa, whoa, whoa! You can't swear at my fiancé!

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Oh, yeah? Well, you can't marry my wife!

  • [singing]

    Ulysses Everett McGill: I am a man of constant sorrow, I've seen trouble all my days. I bid farewell to old Kentucky, the place where I was born and raised.

    Delmar O'DonnellPete: The place where he was born and raised.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: For six long years I've been in trouble, no pleasure here on Earth I've found. For in this world I'm bound to ramble, I have no friends to help me out.

    Delmar O'DonnellPete: He has no friends to help him out.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger, my face you never will see no more. But there is one promise that is given, I'll meet you on God's golden shore.

    Delmar O'DonnellPete: He'll meet you on God's golden shore.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: Me an' the old lady are gonna pick up the pieces and retie the knot, mixaphorically speaking.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: You can't display a toad in a fine restaurant like this! Why, the good folks here would go right off the feed!

    Delmar O'Donnell: I just don't think it's right keeping him under wraps like we's ashamed of him.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, if it is Pete, I am ashamed of him! Way I see it, he got what he deserved, fornicating with some whore of Babylon. These things don't happen for no reason, Delmar. It's obviously some kinda judgment on his character.

    Delmar O'Donnell: Well, the two of us was fixin' to fornicate!

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: I like the smell of my hair treatment; the pleasing odor is half the point.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: I detect, like me, you're endowed with the gift of gab.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: I'll tell you what I am - I'm the damn paterfamilias! You can't marry him!

  • Pete: Well hell, it ain't square one! Ain't nobody gonna pick up three filthy, unshaved hitch-hikers, and one of them a know-it-all that can't keep his trap shut.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Pete, the personal rancor reflected in that remark I don't intend to dignify with comment. But I would like to address your general attitude of hopeless negativism. Consider the lilies of the goddamn field or... hell! Take at look at Delmar here as your paradigm of hope.

    Delmar O'Donnell: Yeah, look at me.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: Tommy, what you ridin' there?

    Tommy Johnson: Uh... Roll top desk!

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: Pete's cousin turned us in for the bounty.

    Pete: The hell you say! Wash is kin!

    Washington Hogwallop: Sorry, Pete, I know we're kin, but they got this depression on. I got to do for me and mine.

    Pete: I'm gonna kill you, Judas Iscariot Hogwallop!

  • [about to be hung]

    Ulysses Everett McGill: It ain't the law!

    Sheriff Cooley: The law? The law is a human institution.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: Deceitful, two-faced she-woman. Never trust a female Delmar, remember that one simple precept and your time with me will not have been ill spent.

    Delmar O'Donnell: Ok, Everett.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Hit by a train! Truth means nothing to a woman, Delmar. Triumph of the subjective. You ever been with a woman?

    Delmar O'Donnell: Well, I... I... I gotta get the family farm back before I can start thinking about that.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: That's right, if then. Believe me Delmar, woman is the most fiendish instrument of torture ever devised to bedevil the days of man.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: I am the only daddy you got! I'm the damn paterfamilias!

    Wharvey Gal: But you ain't bona fide!

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: Ain't you gonna introduce us, Pete?

    Pete: I don't know their names. I seen 'em first!

  • Penny Wharvey McGill: I've spoken my piece and counted to three.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: She counted to three. Goddamit! She counted to three. Sonofabitch!

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: [riding past a chain gang, Everett and Delmar see Pete] Pete got a brother?

    Delmar O'Donnell: Not that I'm aware.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Heat must be getting to me.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: I'm not sure that's Pete.

    Delmar O'Donnell: Of course it's Pete! Look at him!... We gotta find some kind of wizard to change him back.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, I guess hard times flush the chump. Everybody's lookin' for answers... Where the hell's he goin'?

    [as Delmar runs out to be baptized]

    Pete: Well, I'll be a son of a bitch. Delmar's been saved!

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: Say, uh, Cousin Wash, I suppose it'd be the acme of foolishness to inquire if you had a hair net.

    Washington Hogwallop: Got a bunch in yon bureau, Mrs. Hogwallop's as a matter of fact

    [sniff]

    Washington Hogwallop: . Help y'self... I won't be needin' 'em.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: So you're against me now too? Is that how it is boys? The whole world, God almighty, and now you.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, as soon as we get ourselves cleaned up and we get a little smellum in our hair, why, we're gonna feel 100% better about ourselves and about life in general.

  • Pete: You ruined my life!

    [while being choked]

    Ulysses Everett McGill: I do apologize about that Pete.

  • [last lines]

    Penny Wharvey McGill: Well, we need that ring.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Well that ring is at the bottom of a pretty durn big lake.

    Penny Wharvey McGill: Uh-uh.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: A 9,000 hectare lake.

    Penny Wharvey McGill: I don't care if it's 90,000...

    Ulysses Everett McGill: But honey...

    Penny Wharvey McGill: that lake was not my doing.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Of course not honey...

    Penny Wharvey McGill: I counted to three, honey.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: No, wait, honey! Finding one little ring in the middle of all that water is one hell of a heroic task!

  • Pete: Crazy! No one's ever gonna believe we're a real band.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: No, it's gonna work. I just gotta get close enough to talk to her. Takin' off with us has got more future than marryin' a guy named Waldrip. I'm Goddamned bona fide!

    Delmar O'Donnell: Everett, my beard itches.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, it didn't look like a two-horse town, but try finding a decent hair jelly.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: [Upon being startled awake] Mmmm. How's my hair?

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: I don't get it, Big Dan.

  • Washington Hogwallop: Mrs. Hogwallop up and R-U-N-N-O-F-T.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: She musta been lookin' for answers.

    Washington Hogwallop: Possibly. Good riddance as far as I'm concerned. I do miss her cookin' though.

    Delmar O'Donnell: This stew's awful good.

    Washington Hogwallop: [examining his fork] You think so? I slaughtered this horse last Tuesday... I'm afraid she's startin' to turn.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: Yessir, the South is gonna change. Everything's gonna be put on electricity and run on a paying basis. Out with old spiritual mumbo-jumbo, the superstition and the backward ways. We're gonna see a brave new world where they run everyone a wire and hook us all up to the grid. Yessir, a veritable age of reason - like they had in France. And not a moment too soon...

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: Why are you telling our gals that I was hit by a train?

    Penny Wharvey McGill: Lots of respectable people have been hit by trains. Judge Hobbie over in Cookville was hit by a train. What was I gonna tell them, that you got sent to the penal farm and I divorced you from shame?

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Uh, I take your point. But it does put me in a damn awkward position, vis-a-vis my progeny.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: I was not hit by a train. Damnit, I am the paterfamilias!

  • Big Dan Teague: Thank you boys for throwin' in that fricassee. I'm a man of large appetite, and even with lunch under my belt, I was feelin' a mite peckish.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: It's our pleasure, Big Dan.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: The old tactician has got a plan. For the transportation that is, I don't know how I'm gonna keep my coiffure in order.

    Pete: How's this a plan? How we gonna get a car?

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Sell that. I figure it can only have painful association for Wash.

    Pete: [reading] "To Washington Bartholomew Hogwallop, from his loving Cora. Amor Fidel... is."

    Ulysses Everett McGill: It was in his bureau. I figure it'll fetch us enough cash for a good used auto-voiture, and a little left over besides.

  • Delmar O'Donnell: Everett, I never figured you for a paterfamilias.

    Ulysses Everett McGill: Oh-ho, yes, I have spread my seed.

  • Ulysses Everett McGill: Jesus! Can I count on you people?

    Delmar O'Donnell: Sorry, Everett.

Browse more character quotes from O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

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