Washington Dimsdale Quotes in Destry Rides Again (1939)

[Having sworn in his new deputy]

Washington Dimsdale: Here's your badge. Don't let anybody see it.

Tom Destry Jr.: Well, you will fool 'em, Wash. We'll fool 'em together.

Washington Dimsdale: The only way to do that is fill 'em full of lead.

Tom Destry Jr.: No, no, no, what for? You shoot it out with 'em and for some reason or other, I don't know why, they get to look like heroes. But you put 'em behind bars and they look little and cheap, the way they oughta look.

Tom Destry Jr.: He reminds me of a little kid I used to know. He done in both his pa and ma with a crowbar.

Washington Dimsdale: No!

Tom Destry Jr.: Yes, he did. Now the judge said to him, "Do you got anything to say for yourself?". And the kid said, "Well I just hope that Your Honor has some regard for the feelings of a poor orphan."

Washington Dimsdale: Oh, Tom! Look here! Look at this post! Soaked through and through with the blood of Sawtooth McGhee. Yeah, he objected to a petticoat a neighbor's wife was wearing... and they fit to a draw. Both are buried in the same grave.

Tom Destry Jr.: Sawtooth and the petticoat?

Washington Dimsdale: No! Sawtooth and the neighbor! And four innocent bystanders!

Washington Dimsdale: Frenchy, am I really Sheriff?

Frenchy: Sure you are!

Washington Dimsdale: Then I'm off the liquor. A man's got to choose between the bottle and the badge.

[Wash announces he will send for Tom Destry to be his Deputy Sheriff]

Frenchy: But Destry's dead!

Bugs Watson: That makes him the right man for the job.

Gyp Watson: Save us a lot of trouble.

Washington Dimsdale: Is that so? Well, young Tom ain't dead and his father brought him up to be the toughest and fightin'est man that ever growed up in the West! He ain't got as big a name as his pa, but he cleaned up Tombstone and I'm sendin' for him to be my deputy and when he gets here, Destry will ride again!

Washington Dimsdale: How are you going to face anybody after what you took from Kent and Frenchy?

Tom Destry Jr.: Whadja expect me to do?

Washington Dimsdale: I expected you to be like your pa, comin' out blasting behind your shootin' irons! And what happened? You didn't have any? Why?

Tom Destry Jr.: I don't believe in 'em.

Washington Dimsdale: You did the last time I heard about ya. What in thunder has come over ya since then?

Tom Destry Jr.: Wash, my pa had these

[guns]

Tom Destry Jr.: on that day in Tombstone when he got shot in the back. Didn't seem to do him much good, did they? That's one reason I don't believe in 'em.

Washington Dimsdale: What in tarnation do you believe in?

Tom Destry Jr.: Law and order.

Washington Dimsdale: Without guns?

Tom Destry Jr.: Without 'em!

Boris: Observe my brain in action. Now where would I go if I were a dead body? Would I stay in the open? No - no privacy.

Tom Destry Jr.: Mm-hmm. Wouldn't go in the river if you can't swim.

Washington Dimsdale: Why didn't I stay in the gutter where I was well off?

Boris: Would I go under the ground? No - there's no future in it.