Butcher's Crossing Quotes
"Ignore all of what you just heard and sat through. Read these authors. They will be your teachers. You’re a writer who can’t be taught, who has to figure it out on her own."
"I become a transparent eyeball. Gathered in by field and wood, he was nothing; he saw all; the current of some nameless force circulated through him."
"It's good to walk alone in the morning; it's cool then. Soon it'll be winter and too cold to walk, and the hunters will be in town, and I won't be alone at all."
"I felt my head bathed by the clean air and uplifted into infinite space; the meanness and the constriction I had felt were dissipated in the wildness about me."
"On this side is the city, he thought, and on that the wilderness; and though I must return, even that return is only another means I have of leaving it, more and more."
"He felt that wherever he lived, and wherever he would live hereafter, he was leaving the city more and more, withdrawing into the wilderness."
"I knew it would keep. A man couldn’t find it unless he knew where it was, or unless he stumbled on it accidental like I did; and that ain’t very likely."
"The days are long this time of year," Miller said. "The country’s nearly level right up to where we’re going, and there’s water all along the way."
"A man loses lots of habits in time," Charley Hoge said. "Come on, let’s go."
"I’m not cold. I’m just in the habit of wearing it," Andrews smiled.
"You worry too much, Fred. If it gets that bad, we can always get by on Charley’s whisky."
"I knowed all along you’d give in. I knowed it from the first," Charley Hoge grinned sharply.
"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away," Charley Hoge’s voice floated in the dust.
"I’ll go along with you. It don’t matter to me one way or another," Schneider nodded.
"We’re bound to run into water tonight, or early in the morning," Miller said.
"This is what the Kansas hunt has come to," Miller said, looking at the buffalo bones.
"There’s water in this country," Miller said, amidst the uncertainty and thirst.
"It’s enough for that," Miller said, about the scant water they had left.
"We get there like we started out, or we don’t get there at all," Miller insisted, refusing to abandon their load.
"I go where God wills," Charley Hoge said. "He will lead us to where water is when we are athirst."
"Just enough to get your throat wet. More than that will make you sick," Miller cautioned about the whisky.
"We don’t leave a heavy enough trail to follow back, and you can’t mark a trail very well in land like this," Miller explained.
"Sometime during the night he discovered that his mouth was open and that he could not close it."
"His tongue pushed between his teeth, and when he tried to bring them together a dull dry pain spread in his mouth."
"He remembered the sight of the oxen’s tongues, black and swollen and dry."
"Then he heard faintly the creak of the wagon, and prodded his horse in that direction."
"By the time they came in sight of the stream, which wound in a flat treeless gully cut on the level land, the animals were quivering masses of flesh."
"They drank again, more deeply; and rested again."
""By God, we found it. Hold your horses back, and—""
"Andrews lifted one foot from a stirrup; as he did so, the horse, relieved of the pressure of the reins, lunged forward, spilling Andrews to the ground."
""Got to get them unyoked," Charley Hoge said. "They’ll kill theirselves if they go at this much longer.""
""Take it easy," Miller said, when they had flung themselves down on their stomachs beside the narrow, muddy stream."
""I’ve found it, now," he had said back at the camp beside the stream. "It won’t get away from me again.""
"A small low uneven hump of dark blue rose on the farthest extremity of land that he could see."
""The mountains. I reckoned we should be in sight of them sometime today.""
""It seems like everything is different from what it was.""
""I didn’t say that." Miller’s eyes continued to range the line of the river."
""This is the place. Charley, turn your wagon down here and come straight across.""
""How many are there?" "Two, three thousand maybe. And maybe more."
""There’s been a herd over it not too long ago. Looks like a big one.""
""It’s going to be hard climbing from now on. Better tie your horses to the tail of the wagon; Charley’ll be needing our help.""
""This is their road." His hand caressed the hard-packed contours of the earth."
""Come on," Miller said abruptly. "We got a long way to go before we set up camp.""
""My God!" Miller said again. "I never thought they’d get a railroad in this country.""
""It seems like the country has changed." His voice was quietly puzzled."
""Then we still don’t know where we are?" "I didn’t say that.""
""Let’s get started," he said, turning to the men. "We ain’t going to find nothing as long as we sit here.""
""We should hit the river by noon," Miller said. "Then we start to climb.""
"The sun had fallen far below the mountain opposite them, and its shadow darkened the place where they stood."
"There ain't no sin in buffalo meat nor corn whisky."
"Thinking about what you can't have will drive you off your feed."
"A belly full of buffalo meat, and a good drink of whisky."
"We'll be here till spring, boy. You might as well set your mind to it."
"This will be my home for the next six or eight months."
"The Lord will provide. He'll turn my steps in the right path."
"This town's been good to me; I hate to see it slow down."
"You got something to show for a whole winter."
"They'll be a comfort to you in your old age."
"Ain't you got eyes? Ain't you looked around you?"
"The bottom's dropped out of the whole market; the hide business is finished. For good."
"You live all your life on lies, and then maybe when you're ready to die, it comes to you—that there's nothing, nothing but yourself and what you could have done."
"You spend nearly a year of your life and sweat, because you have faith in the dream of a fool. And what have you got? Nothing."
"It's not that they were worth anything. But they were mine."
"You have to get away from it before you can handle it. And no more dreams; I take what I can get when I can get it, and worry about nothing else."
"It was the contemptuous look that Schneider had given the river just before the hoof had blanked his face."
"It was the hollow glint in Charley Hoge's eyes, when Charley Hoge turned from the dying fire to follow Miller into the night."
"In the stillness of the deserted street he walked across to the livery stable and got his horse, awakening the stableman to give him one of the bills he had kept."