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Brother, Where Art Thou?
Delmar O'Donnell: Oh George, not the
livestock!
Ulysses
Everett McGill: You ever been with a woman?
Delmar O'Donnell: I gotta get
the family farm back before I start worrying about that.
Ulysses
Everett McGill: You two are just dumber than a bag of hammers.
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.
[Repeated
line]
Ulysses Everett McGill: Damn! We're in a tight spot!
Ulysses
Everett McGill: Me an' the old lady are gonna pick up the pieces and retie the
knot, mixaphorically speaking.
Ulysses
Everett McGill: I'll tell you what I am -- I'm the damn paterfamilias! You can't
marry him!
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.
Pete:
What's the devil look like?
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, Pete, there are
all manner of lesser imps and demons, but the great Satan hisself is red and scaly
with a bifurcated tail, and he carries a hay fork.
Tommy Johnson: Oh 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.
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.
Ulysses
Everett McGill: It does put me in a damn awkward position, vis-a-vis my progeny.
Penny
Wharvey McGill: A lot of respectable people have been hit by trains.
Ulysses
Everett McGill: 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'?
Ulysses
Everett McGill: Only a fool looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart.
Pete:
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.
Penny
Wharvey McGill: Vernon here's got a job. Vernon's got prospects. He's bona fide.
What are you?
Delmar
O'Donnell: Them syreens did this to him. They loved him up and turned him into
a horny toad.
Pete:
Since we been followin' your lead, we ain't got nothing but trouble.
Pete:
No one's gonna pick three dirty, unshaved strangers -- and one of them a know-it-all
who 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. However, I would
like to address your general attitude of negativity. Consider the lilies o' the
goddamn field or... hell! Take Delmar here as your paradigm of hope.
Ulysses
Everett McGill: The personal rancor reflected in that remark I do not wish to
dignify with a comment. However, I would like to address your general attitude
of negativity. Consider the lilies a the goddamn field or...hell! Take Delmar
here as your paradigm of hope.
[Shopping
for pomade while on the run.]
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well I don't want Fop,
godammit! I'm a Dapper Dan man!
Ulysses
Everett McGill: Well isn't this place a geographic oddity. Two weeks from everywhere.
Ulysses
Everett McGill: Well, it didn't look like a two-horse town, but try finding a
decent hair jelly.
Delmar
O'Donnell: Friend? Some of your foldin' money is come unstowed.
Delmar
O'Donnell: You ain't no kind of man if you ain't got land.
George
Nelson: Jesus saves, George Nelson withdraws!
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...
Delmar
O'Donnell: We thought you was a toad!
Pete: What?
Delmar O'Donnell: [leaning
in, speaking slower] We thought you was a toad!
Lund:
Now, what can I do you for Mr. French?
French: How can I lay a hold of them
Soggy Bottom Boys?
Lund: Soggy Bottom? I don't recitely recollect them.
French:
They cut a record in here a few days ago, was an old-timey harmony thing with
a guitar accom ... accomp ...
Lund: Oh myeah myeah myeah myeah I remember
them. They was colored fellas I believe.
French: Uh huh.
Lund: Yessah,
they're a fine bunch a boys. They sang in the yonder can and skeedadled.
French:
Well that record is goin' through the goddamned roof. They playin' it as far away
as Mobile.
Lund: Naw?
French: Whole damn state's goin' apey.
Lund:
Well it was a powerful act.
French: Hot damn, we gotta find them boys and
sign 'em to a big fat contract. Hells Bells, Mr. Lund, if we don't the goddamned
competition will.
Lund: Ohhhh mercy yes we got to beat that competition.
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?
Pete:
Do not seek the treasure!
Blind
Seer: You seek a great fortune, you three who are now in chains. You will find
a fortune, though it will not be the one you seek. But first... first you must
travel a long and difficult road, a road fraught with peril. Mm-hmm. You shall
see thangs, wonderful to tell. You shall see a... a cow... on the roof of a cotton
house, ha. And, oh, so many startlements. I cannot tell you how long this road
shall be, but fear not the obstacles in your path, for fate has vouchsafed your
reward. Though the road may wind, yea, your hearts grow weary, still shall ye
follow them, even unto your salvation.
Homer
Stokes: The color guard is colored!
Washington
Hogwallop: Mrs. Hogwallop done R-U-N-N-O-F-T.
Ulysses
Everett McGill: I was not hit by a train. Damnit, I am the paterfamilias!
Delmar
O'Donnell: Gopher, Everett?
Pappy
O'Daniel: Shake a leg Junior! Thank God your mammy died givin' birth. If she'd
have seen you, she'd have died o' shame.
Delmar
O'Donnell: They...took..his...heart!
Ulysses
Everett McGill: [Upon being startled awake] Mmmm. How's my hair?
Ulysses
Everett McGill: I detect, like me, you're endowed with the gift of gab.
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.
Big
Dan Teague: You don't say much my friend, but when you do it's to the point, and
I salute you for it.
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: A woman is the most fiendish instrument of torture ever devised
to bedevil the days of man.
Ulysses
Everett McGill: Tommy, what you ridin' there?
Tommy Johnson: Uh....Roll top
desk!
Delmar
O'Donnell: where's the happy little tire swing?
Washington
Hogwallop: I slaughtered this horse last Tuesday. I think it's startin' to turn.
Penny
Wharvey McGill: The only good thing you ever did for the gals was get hit by that
train!
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!
Ulysses
Everett McGill: Are you sure that's Pete?
Delmar O'Donnell: Of course it is!
Look at him! ... We gotta find some wizard to change him back.
Delmar
O'Donnell: Care for a gopher?
Ulysses Everett McGill: No thank you, Delmar.
One third of a gopher would only arouse my appetite without bedding it down.
Delmar
O'Donnell: You can have the whole thing. Me and Pete found a whole... gopher village.
Pete:
My pa always said "Never trust a Hogwallop!"
Pappy's
Staff: The reason he's pullin' our pants down.
Pappy's Staff: Gonna paddle
a little behind.
Pappy's Staff: Ain't gonna paddle it - gonna kick it, real
hard.
Pappy's Staff: No, I believe he's gonna paddle it.
Pappy's Staff:
I don't believe that's a proper characterization.
Pappy's Staff: Well, that's
how I'd characterize it.
Pappy's Staff: I believe it's more of a kickin' sitcheyation.
Pappy
O'Daniel: I'll press your flesh you dimwitted sumbitch
[Discussing
how to counter Homer Stokes' campaign for governor]
Junior O'Daniel: We could
hire our own midget, even shorter than his.
Pappy O'Daniel: Wouldn't we look
like a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies, bragging on our own midget, doesn't matter
how stumpy.
Pappy
O'Daniel: Moral fibre? I invented moral fibre! Pappy O'Daniel was displaying rectitude
and high-mindedness when that egghead you work for was still messing his drawers!
Homer
Stokes: These boys is not white! These boys is not white! Hell, they ain't even
old timey!
Homer
Stokes: This band of miscreants, this very evening, interfered with a lynch mob
in the performance of its duty.
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: 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: Say, uh, Cousin Wash, I suppose it'd be the acme of foolishness
to inquire if you had a hair net.
Man
with Bullhorn: All right, boys! Just come on out and grabbin' air! Don't try nothing
foolish! Your situation is purty nigh hopeless!
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!
Delmar
O'Donnell: How's that gonna get us a car?
Ulysses Everett McGill: Sell that.
I figure it'll fetch us enough to get a decent used auto-voiture, and a little
left over besides. That takes care of transport, I don't know how I'm to keep
my coiffure in order.
[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.
[As
a noose is flung over Pete]
Sheriff Cooley: Stairway to heaven. We shall all
meet by and by.
[About
to be hung]
Ulysses Everett McGill: It ain't the law!
Sheriff Cooley:
The law? The law is a human institution.
Pappy
O'Daniel: Holey moley! These boys are a hit!
Junior O'Daniel: But Pappy, they's
integrated!
Homer
Stokes: Is you is, or is you ain't, my constituency?
George
Nelson: I'm George Nelson, and I'm feeling ten feet tall!
Ulysses
Everett McGill: So you're against me now too? Is that how it is boys? The whole
world, God almighty, and now you.
Delmar
O'Donnell: You mean to tell me you sold your everlasting soul for *that*?
Tommy
Johnson: Well, I figured I wasn't usin' it.
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.
Soggy
Bottom Customer: Do you have the Soggy Bottom Boys performing "Man of Constant
Sorrow?"
Record Store Clerk: No ma'am. We got a new shipment in yesterday.
Sorry, but we just can't keep em on our shelves.
Ulysses
Everett McGill: Ain't you gonna introduce us, Pete?
Pete: I don't know their
names. I seen 'em first!
Big
Dan Teague: So long boys. See you in the funny papers.
Penny
Wharvey McGill: I've spoken my peace and counted to three.
Ulysses Everett
McGill: She's counted to three. Goddamit! She's counted to three. Sonofabitch!
Pappy
O'Daniel: Furthermore, in the second Pappy O'Daniel administration, these boys
is gonna be my *brain* trust.
Delmar O'Donnell: What's that mean, Everett?
Ulysses
Everett McGill: I like the smell of my hair treatment; the pleasing odor is half
the point.
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.
Homer
Stokes: Those boys desacrated a burning cross!