Hondo Quotes
"A man as bleak as the land over which he rode, yet beneath the harshness and the necessary violence, a kind man, a just man."
"A woman with a home, no matter how thin the walls, how lonely the prospect."
"Often he admired the men he killed, often he was contemptuous of their ignorance and lack of skills."
"A boy who had a mother but needed a man to show him how to become a man himself."
"I sing of arms and men, not of presidents, kings, generals, or passing explorers, but of those who survived their personal, lonely Alamos."
"I do not need to go to Thermopylae or the Plains of Marathon for heroism. I find it here on the frontier."
"Patience at such a time was more than a virtue, it was the price of survival."
"The only movement was the lazy swing of a remote buzzard."
"A man could stand off almost any attack from this place, situated as it was."
"A man’s got a different smell from a man. Not salty and sharp, but kinda soft and rich and warm."
"She should not feel like this about any man."
"She had been worried about fuel, and now she need no longer worry."
"This was her home, and here she could eke out a living whether Ed returned or not."
"He sat up, listening, placing the sounds of the predawn hour."
"The water gurgled darkly over the stones with little places of bubbling water where it ran around a branch or other obstruction."
"There was food in the desert if a man knew where to find it."
"An Apache preferred it to any other, with horse meat second, and only after that would he consider beef or mutton."
"You must have learned a lot from the Indians."
"I don’t remember anything unhappy about Destarte."
"It means like you get up in the first light and you and her go out of the wickiup, where it smells smoky and private and just you and her, and kind of safe with just the two of you there."
"No man knows the hour of his ending, nor can he choose the place or the manner of his going."
"To each it is given to die proudly, to die well, and this is, indeed, the final measure of the man."
"The Apaches carried off their dead and wounded, but there were bloodstains on the grass and many of them marked where men had died."
"A woman walks with her head up ought to kiss a man before she dies."
"It is sworn there will be no whites in Apache territory."
"Beyond the sprawling villages of adobes and jacales were the neatly ranged tents of the cavalry unit."
"It was not a time to be riding alone, and not many were willing to chance it."
"It took little to get men out of the jacales, places more suited to the residence of scattered and indifferent centipedes, scorpions, or occasional tarantulas than of human beings."
"Well," said Buffalo, "I owe you a jug of redeye. Settle come payday."
"The Major's sleeping," the sergeant spoke in a careful, noncommittal tone.
"I am greatly interested in your opinion of the United States Cavalry," Major Sherry said dryly.
"You may leave. I have business to attend to."
"A lodge should have a man. Small Warrior should have a father to instruct him."
"Every battle was a lesson; in each there was something to be learned."
"To live with honor and to pass on having left our mark, it is only essential that we do our part."
"I've been ordered to hold all scouts in. The General has something in mind."
"Thank you, Emiliano. I shall speak of this to Vittoro."
"A waiting moment of silence, then a sudden rush of hoofs across the hard-packed yard."
"He decided that Lowe was weak . . . weak and jealous."
"The moving shadow of a woman on a wall, and the faint sounds of a woman working."
"The desert has traps and tricks for the careless."
"One cannot fight the desert and live. One lives with it, or one dies."
"His saddle lay beside him, his rifle in the scabbard."
"The man had strange ways, but he was Sam’s friend, and they understood each other."
"The loneliness and the vast, quiet majesty of the desert night."
"They were the People. That was what their name meant."
"A man without a woman, without a home, and without a child was no man at all."
"What else could she have done? Had she not accepted him as her husband, he would have been killed."
"Under a quiet sky the planet turned, and horses ate, and men slept, and death waited for morning."
"They saw the rolled blankets, the open space in the brush, the linebacked horse . . . and nothing else!"
"She had told Vittoro this man was her husband! And he dared not leave now."
"There was nothing to think of now, nothing to wait for. There was only the night and the steady rain falling."
"There's a lot of dead men that didn't believe what Vittoro said."
"Spoils a boy to be protected. How’ll he ever learn to care for himself?"
"The fringe helps the buckskin to shed water. That’s why it’s there."
"Nobody but a fool or a tenderfoot wears bright, shiny stuff on his clothes."
"I don’t guess people’s hearts got anything to do with calendars."
"No two animals and no two men leave the same track. Like signin’ your name. Every one is different."
"Nobody lives their life without having to face things from time to time."