- Augustus 'Gus' McCrae: If you want only one thing too much, it's likely to turn out a disappointment. Now the only healthy way to live, as I see it, is to learn to like all the little every day things.
- Augustus 'Gus' McCrae: You've got a long time to live. And you don't want this thing dragging you back.
- Monkey John: [Blue Duck has shot an Indian that disagreed with him] Life is cheap up here on the Canadian.
- Blue Duck: It's apt to get a lot cheaper. Let's gamble.
- Augustus 'Gus' McCrae: [riding into San Antonio seeing hundreds of people] There's durn people makin' towns everywhere. And it's our fault, too.
- Woodrow F. Call: Our fault?
- Augustus 'Gus' McCrae: Well, we chased out the Indians, didn't we? Hung all the good bandits. Did it ever occur to you that everything we done was a mistake? You and me done our work too well, Woodrow. Hell, we killed off all the people that made this country interesting to begin with, didn't we?
- Woodrow F. Call: You're lucky they didn't through you in jail.
- Augustus 'Gus' McCrae: Well, it ain't much of a crime whackin' a surely bartender. I guess they may have forgot us though.
- Woodrow F. Call: Why wouldn't they forget us? We haven't been around here in years.
- Augustus 'Gus' McCrae: No, the reason is we never got killed, that's why they forgot us.
- Woodrow F. Call: That is a dang foolish thing to say.
- Augustus 'Gus' McCrae: No it ain't. If a thousand Comanches had cornered us in a gutter somewhere and wiped us out, like the Soo just done Custer, why they'd remember us sure. Hell, they'd be writin' songs about us for a hindered years.
- Woodrow F. Call: Now there weren't ever a thousand Comanches in the whole world, and you know it.
- Augustus 'Gus' McCrae: Well that ain't the point, Woodrow!
- Cowboy: [about Gus] I keep expecting to hear him talk. When he ain't here, my ears start to get empty.