The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) quotes
Directors
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen.
Cast
Tim Blake Nelson.
Clancy Brown.
Tom Waits.
Six tales of life and violence in the Old West, following a singing gunslinger, a bank robber, a traveling impresario, an elderly prospector, a wagon train, and a perverse pair of bounty hunters.
There’s just gotta be a place up ahead, where men ain’t low down, and poker’s played fair. If there weren’t, what are all the songs about? I’ll see y’all there. And we can sing together and shake our heads over all the meanness in the used to be.
– Buster Scruggs
Sir, it seems that you’re are a no better a judge of human beings than you are a specimen of one. Just on a brief inventory I’d say you could use yourself a shave and a better disposition. And lastly, if you don’t my mind me aspersing your friends… a better class of drinking buddies.
– Buster Scruggs
You know the story, but people can’t get enough of them, like little children. Because, well, they connect the stories to themselves, I suppose, and we all love hearing about ourselves, so long as the people in the stories are us, but not us. Not us in the end, especially.
– Englishman
Gilbert had a saying for any situation. A ready bit of wisdom. He was very certain.
– Alice Longabaugh
He was a dough face?
– Billy Knapp
…He had fixed political beliefs. All of his beliefs were quite fixed. He would upbraid me for being wishy-washy. I never had his certainties. I suppose it is a defect.
– Alice Longabaugh
I don’t think it’s a defect at all. Oh no. Uncertainty. That is appropriate for matters of this world. Only regarding the next are vouchsafed certainty.
– Billy Knapp
Yes.
– Alice Longabaugh
I believe certainty regarding that which we can see and touch, it is seldom justified, if ever. Down the ages, from our remote past, what certainties survive? And yet we hurry to fashion new ones. Wanting their comfort. Certainty… is the easy path. Just as you said.
– Billy Knapp
Misanthrope? I don’t hate my fellow man, even when he’s tiresome and surly and tries to cheat at poker. I figure that’s just a human material, and him that finds in it cause for anger and dismay is just a fool for expecting better.
– Buster Scruggs
You’re bounty hunters.
– Trapper
Literal man! Cruel man!… yes, fine: bounty hunters. An ugly title, really… as if emolument were the point. Is the cobbler not paid for his shoes? It’s an honest calling!
– Englishman
How high can a bird count anyway?
– Prospector
It didn’t hit nothin’ important!
– Prospector
Don’t let my white duds and pleasant demeanor fool ya. I, too, have been known to violate the statutes of man… and not a few of the laws of the Almighty!
– Buster Scruggs
The coup-de-grâce I’ll leave to the wolves and Gila monsters!
– Buster Scruggs
I got to set myself up, in the undertaking business. Stop doing all the skill work, so another man can profit. But, then, do I want to wear a black suit?
– Buster Scruggs