Sissy SpacekQuotes

Mae Tuck: [to Miles] You're as cozy as barbed wire.

Ed Horman: This past week I've felt like, erm, my heart has been torn out of me.

Beth Horman: It's okay.

Ed Horman: I feel very guilty.

Beth Horman: Hey, Charlie always says guilt is like fear. It's given to us for survival, not destruction.

Ed Horman: Oh. Beth, for what it's worth, I think you are one of the most courageous people I have ever met.

Ed Horman: Now, erm, I owe you an apology.

Beth Horman: No, you don't.

Ed Horman: No, no, no. Well, for a long time now I've sold you short. Both of you. I don't really know why. Unless it's because I'm getting old. And I'm very stubborn.

Ed Horman: Why aren't you cooperating with them?

Beth Horman: I am cooperating with them. I've been cooperating for two weeks, Ed! I'm sick and tired of getting fucked around by these people, that's why!

U.S. Ambassador: So, you see, Mr. Horman, the hiding theory seems to be the most viable, at least for the present.

Beth Horman: That's dumb. If he were in hiding, he'd call me and let me know he was all right.

Colonel Clay: Maybe he can't. There have been a lot of civilian accidents and injuries.

Beth Horman: No shit, Sherlock.

Beth Horman: And what are the basics? God, country and Wall Street?

Ed Horman: You know what I mean.

Beth Horman: I know, I know. God bless our way of life!

Ed Horman: Oh, a very good way of life it is, young lady, no matter how much people like you and Charles try to tear it down with your sloppy idealism. I can no longer abide the young people of our country who live off their parents and the fat of the land and then they find nothing better to do than whine and complain.

Ed Horman: He, he seems so innocent. Almost deliberately naive.

Beth Horman: Is that so bad?

Ed Horman: Is that so good?

Beth Horman: You raised him.

Beth Horman: They give me the same song and dance over and over again. He could be hurt or - tortured. They don't give a goddamn about him.

Ed Horman: Oh look, really, I don't want to hear any of your anti-Establishment paranoia! I certainly get enough of that from my son.

Radio Announcer: That was Miss Patsy Cline, tragically killed in a plane crash early this morning near Dyersburg Tennessee.

Loretta Lynn: [slowly waking up to the news and jumping out of bed to call, making mistakes, hanging up and trying again while dissolving into tears] She can't be dead, Doo! We was goin shoppin'! Who am I gonna talk to now?!

Loretta Lynn: Dadgum it, Doo! You never ask me nothing! You just say, "Hey baby, here's the deal, take it or leave it." Well, it's drivin me crazy, Doo!

Doolittle Lynn: Well, hell, then let's go up to the house, call a lawyer and get a divorce. I'm tired of this bullshit.

Loretta Lynn: I don't want no divorce! I just want the dadgum bedroom in the back of the house!

Loretta Lynn: [after being picked up by Patsy's husband Charlie after singing `I Fall to Pieces' at the Midnite Jamboree] You ain't mad at me for singin your song are you Patsy?

Patsy Cline: Set-own. People might think you sing better than me.

Loretta Lynn: Huh-uh.

Patsy Cline: Well, how many times you been on the Opry now?

Loretta Lynn: I been on seventeen straight times.

Patsy Cline: People wanna know who you been a-sleepin with to be on that many times.

Loretta Lynn: Aw, who's been a-sayin that?

Patsy Cline: [chuckles] Gals that been a-sleepin with ever'body and still ain't been on yet.

Loretta Lynn: Like who?

Patsy Cline: Oh, take it as a compliment. Girl, you got `em runnin scared.

Loretta Lynn: [catches Doolittle with another woman] Woman, if you want to keep that arm, you better get it off my husband.

Girl at fairgrounds: Who are you telling what?

Loretta Lynn: I don't know who you are, but I know what you are.

Loretta Lynn: The Grand Ole Opry! What if they won't let me in?

Doolittle Lynn: They'd better let us in, I done spent all the money on these donuts. Besides that, how are they gonna keep us out? We're number 14! Nationwide.

Loretta Lynn: [in a radio interview] Shoot, we've been driving so much, I don't know where I am half the time. But it's fun. We sing, and talk, and Doo - that's my husband - he'll get to acting horny.

Speedy West: [shocked] What?!

Loretta Lynn: And the more I laugh, the hornier he gets, and then he'll say "Loretta, spread me up another one of them baloney sandwiches!

Radio station manager: [later] I don't know where in the hell you think are, lady, but that part of smut don't go in this part of the country!

Loretta Lynn: I didn't know it was dirty! I thought "horny" meant cuttin up and acting silly!

Radio station manager: And cut up that dumb hillbilly act!

Doolittle Lynn: If you knew Loretta, you'd know that ain't no act.

Loretta Lynn: Thank you, honey.

Doolittle Lynn: Deal is, Loretta, you can sing in every little honky tonk in the country. There's thousands doing it and they ain't getting nowhere and they never will. The thing that's gonna give you the edge is getting yourself a record. And the next step's even more important than that and that's getting people to play the dad-burned thing, but right now what you and me have to worry about... is you making the best doggone record you can, it all depends on that, darling.

Loretta Lynn: Boy, Doo, I didn't know you knew so much about the music business.

Doolittle Lynn: I don't. I'm just figuring it out as I go along, listening to people talk.

Loretta Lynn: I'm gettin so sick of baloney.

Doolittle Lynn: You are? Well, you know what they say about eatin baloney, don't you?

Loretta Lynn: No, what?

Doolittle Lynn: Makes you horny.

Loretta Lynn: What does that mean?

Doolittle Lynn: [starts laughing] Are you so dadburn ignorant, you don't know what "horny" means?

Loretta Lynn: No, what does it mean?

Doolittle Lynn: I ain't gonna tell you.

Loretta Lynn: Doo! Doo, what does it mean? What does it mean?

Loretta Lynn: I ain't no singer, Doo. I can't sing for no strangers.

Doolittle Lynn: Yes, you can. I done fixed it up for you. There ain't no problem.

Loretta Lynn: You didn't ask me nothin about it!

Doolittle Lynn: How the hell can I ask you somethin about it if you run off and hide like a stupid hillbilly?

Loretta Lynn: Don't call me that. I may be ignorant, but I ain't stupid. Why do you want me to sing so much for anyway?

Doolittle Lynn: Cause I'm proud of you when you sing.

Loretta Lynn: Doo, I'm glad I make you proud, honey, but I can't sing in front of people. I just can't!

Doolittle Lynn: Yes, you can, baby. You're gonna sing for these old boys in here in the morning, and next week you're gonna be up on that stage singing for all these people here, if I have to kick your st-, ignorant hillbilly ass every step of the way!

Doolittle Lynn: Loretta, I am leaving Kentucky. I'm going out west to Washington to get me a job on a ranch or something. That damned ol coal mine's got me buried alive.

Loretta Lynn: Was you just gonna leave me?

Doolittle Lynn: Just long enough to get the money to send for you.

Loretta Lynn: What makes you think I'd come?

Doolittle Lynn: Cause you're my wife, darling!

Loretta Lynn: I'm your wife! Boy, you better think of a better reason than that.

Doolittle Lynn: There ain't nothing for me in Kentucky, Loretta. Except a chest full of coal dust and bein an old man time I'm 40. You ask your daddy. Sides that, you got to come with me, I love you.

Loretta Lynn: You promised Daddy you wouldn't take me off far from home.

Doolittle Lynn: Well, you just have to make up your mind, darling, whether or not you're his daughter or my wife. Get in. I'll take you back to the house. What are you doing in the bottom anyhow?

Loretta Lynn: I come to see Doc Turner.

Doolittle Lynn: You sick?

Loretta Lynn: Yeah, I'm gonna have a baby.

Doolittle Lynn: [laughs] Oh, Lord, Loretta. You know, darlin', you might have found something that you know how to do.

Loretta Lynn: This stuff's cold.

Doolittle Lynn: That's because it froze between here and the damn restaurant. You want a hot breakfast, you got to go with me.

Loretta Lynn: I ain't going in there having all them people looking at me knowing what we've been doing in here.

Doolittle Lynn: Hell's Bells, Loretta. You think this is somethin the rest of the world ain't caught onto yet? They don't give a damn. Baby, it's just a little rough the first time, that's all.

Loretta Lynn: Didn't seem too rough on you.

Doolittle Lynn: Well, you better get used to it, darling, because that's what a damn marriage...

Loretta Lynn: I ain't gonna get used to you gettin on me and sweatin like an old pig!

Ted Webb: I ain't ever gonna see you again.

Loretta Lynn: Yes you will, daddy.

Ted Webb: Maybe. But I ain't never gonna see my little girl again. Them years has been robbed from me, like a thief broke in and robbed em.

Loretta Lynn: I had something I wanted to tell y'all tonight. But Doo, he don't want me to say nothing. But I can tell you, friends, cause you wouldn't be here if you didn't care about me. See, things is moving too fast in my life. Always have. I mean. one day I was this little girl. The next day I was married. Next I was having babies. Next day I was out here singing for y'all. Patsy's always saying, "Little girl, you got to run your own life." But my life's running me.

Loretta Lynn: [after discovering Mooney with a young woman] I'm warning you, Doolittle, I'd better not ever catch you with trash like that again! I mean it!

Matt Fowler: Do you wanna know why our son is dead? Do you really wanna know? He went there not because of me. He was with her not because of me. He went there because of you. Because you are so controlling, so overbearing, so angry, that he was it! That he was our only son!

Ruth Fowler: That is not true!

Matt Fowler: Oh, yes it is. Yes, it is. Ever since he was little, you were telling him how he was wrong. I remember, one time you yanked him out of a little league game and sent him home, for throwing his glove in the dirt. He was what? Nine years old. Everything he did was wrong. Well, what was wrong with him, Ruth? You are so unforgiving. You are. That's what he said. And now you're pulling the same shit with me, and that's a horrible way to be. It's a horrible. You're bitter, Ruth. And you can point your finger all you want at me, but you better take a damn good look at yourself first.

Matt Fowler: I know what you think, that I was too lenient! That I let him get away with -

Ruth Fowler: Everything!

Ruth Fowler: He needs his head in school, not in her.

Matt Fowler: So to speak.

Ruth Fowler: [about her grief; [music] It's like the moments between waves crashing—or pauses in ]. There's no noise, but it's deafening.

Holly Sargis: Kit and I were taken back to South Dakota. They kept him in solitary, so he didn't have a chance to get acquainted with the other inmates, though he was sure they'd like him, especially the murderers. Myself, I got off with probation and a lot of nasty looks. Later, I married the son of the lawyer who defended me. Kit went to sleep in the courtroom while his confession was being read, and he was sentenced to die in the electric chair. On a warm spring night, six months later, after donating his body to science, he did.

Holly Sargis: Often, I've wondered what was going through Kit's head before they got him, and why he didn't make a run for it while he still had the chance. Did he figure they'd just catch him the next day? Was it despair? He claimed to having a flat tire, but the way he carried on about it, I imagine this is false.

Holly Sargis: Kit knew the end was coming. He wondered if he'd hear the doctor pronounce him dead, or if he'd be able to read what the papers would say about him the next day, from the other side. He dreaded the idea of being shot down alone, he said, without a girl to scream out his name. Then, for an instant, the sight of the mountains in the dawn light got his hopes back up.

Holly Sargis: We took off at sunset, on a line toward the mountains of Saskatchewan, for Kit a magical land beyond the reach of the law. He needed me now more than ever, but something had come between us. I'd stopped even paying attention to him. Instead, I sat in the car and read a map and spelled out entire sentences with my tongue on the roof of my mouth, where nobody could read them. That night we moved closer to the border, and clear across the prairie, at the very edge of the horizon. We could make out the gas fires of the refineries at Missoula, while to the south, we could see the lights of Cheyenne, a city bigger and grander than I'd ever seen. I felt all kind of things looking at the lights of Cheyenne, but most important, I made up my mind to never again tag around with a hell-bent type, no matter how in love with him I was. Finally, I found the strength to tell Kit this. I pointed out that even if we got to the Far North, he still couldn't make a living.

Holly Sargis: He took and buried some of our things in a bucket. He said that nobody else would know where we'd put em, and that we'd come back someday, maybe, and they'd still be sitting here, just the same, but we'd be different. And if we never got back, well, somebody might dig em up a thousand years from now and wouldn't they wonder!

Holly Sargis: We lived in utter loneliness, neither here nor there. Kit said that solitude was a better word, cause it meant more exactly what I wanted to say. Whatever the expression, I told him we couldn't go on living this way... "I feel like a, kind of like an animal living out here. There's no place to bathe and not any place to get anything good to eat."...In the distance, I saw a train making its way silently across the plain, like a caravan in The Adventures of Marco Polo. It was our first taste of civilization in weeks, and I asked Kit if we could have a closer look.

Holly Sargis: Fearing there'd be roadblocks on the highways, we took off across that region known as the Great Plains. Kit told me to enjoy the scenery - and I did. "Rumor: Pat Boone is seriously considering giving up his career so he can return to school full-time and complete his education. Fact: Pat has told intimates that so long as things are going well for his career, it's the education that will have to take a back seat...Rumor: Frank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth are in love. Fact: True, but not with each other." Through desert and mesa, across the endless miles of open range, we made our headlong way, steering by the telephone lines toward the mountains of Montana. Kit would sometimes ram a cow to save on ammo, and we'd cook it. Once we had to eat a bunch of salt grass. It tasted like cabbage. For gas, we used the leakage from the valves of the pipelines we found along the way. Drip gas is what it's called in that part of the country. Little by little, we approached the border. Kit was glad to leave South Dakota behind and cursed its name. He said that if the Communists ever dropped the atomic bomb, he wished they'd put it right in the middle of Rapid City.

Holly Sargis: Sometimes he acts like there's something wrong with his bean. Hope nothing ever goes wrong with mine...He's kind of odd. They claim I've got him wrapped around my little finger, but I never told him to shoot anybody.

Holly Sargis: The day was quiet and serene but I didn't notice, for I was deep in thought, and not even thinking about how to slip off. The world was like a faraway planet to which I could never return. I thought what a fine place it was, full of things that people can look into and enjoy.

Holly Sargis: The whole country was out looking for us, for who knew where Kit would strike next. Sidewalks cleared out, stores closed their doors and drew their blinds. Posses and vigilance committees were set up from Texas to North Dakota. Children rode back and forth to school under heavy guard. A famous detective was brought in from Boston. He could find no clues. People left their lights on when they went to sleep. My clarinet teacher said I probably wasn't responsible, but others said I was. Then, on Thursday, the Governor of Oklahoma sent out the National Guard to stand watch at the Federal Reserve Bank in Tulsa when word got out that Kit meant to rob it. It was like the Russians had invaded.

Holly Sargis: At this moment, I didn't feel shame or fear, but just kind of blah, like when you're sitting there and all the water's run out of the bathtub.

Holly Sargis: Suddenly, I was thrown into a state of shock. Kit was the most trigger happy person I'd ever met. He claimed that as long as you're playing for keeps and the law is coming at ya, it's considered OK to shoot all witnesses. You had to take the consequences, though, and not whine about it later. He never seemed like a violent person before, except for once, when he said he'd like to rub out a couple of guys whose names he didn't care to mention. It all goes to show how you can know a person and not really know him at the same time.

Holly Sargis: Kit never let on why he'd shot Cato. He said that just talking about it could bring us bad luck and that right now, we needed all the luck we could get.

Holly Sargis: Kit felt bad about shooting those men in the back, but he said they'd come in like that, and they would've played it as down and dirty as they could. And besides, he'd overheard them whispering about how they were only interested in the reward money. With lawmen, it would've been different. They were out there to get a job done and they deserved a fair chance. But not a bounty hunter.

Holly Sargis: One day, while taking a look at some vistas in Dad's stereopticon, it hit me that I was just this little girl, born in Texas, whose father was a sign painter and who had only just so many years to live. It sent a chill down my spine, and I thought - Where would I be this very moment if Kit had never met me? Or killed anybody? This very moment? If my Mom had never met my Dad? If she'd have never died? And what's the man I'll marry gonna look like? What's he doing right this minute? Is he thinking about me now, by some coincidence, even though he doesn't know me? Does it show on his face? For days afterwards, I lived in dread. Sometimes, I wished I could fall asleep and be taken off to some magical land, but this never happened.

Holly Sargis: We had our bad moments, like any couple. Kit accused me of only being along for the ride, while at times I wish he'd fall in the river and drown, so I could watch. Mostly though, we got along fine and stayed in love. I grew to love the forest. The cooing of the doves and the hum of dragonflies in the air made it always seem lonesome and like everybody's dead and gone. When the leaves rustled overhead, it was like the spirits were whispering about all the little things that bothered em.

Holly Sargis: We hid out in the wilderness down by a river in a grove of cottonwoods. It being the flood season, we built our house in the trees, with tamarisk walls and willows laid side by side to make a floor. There wasn't a plant in the forest that didn't come in handy. We planned a huge network of tunnels under the forest floor, and our first order of business every morning was to decide on a new password for the day. Now and then, we'd sneak out at night and steal a chicken or a bunch of corn or some melons from a melon patch. Mostly, though, we just lay on our backs and stared at the clouds and sometimes it was like being in a big marble hall, the way we talked in low voices and heard the tiniest sound. They hadn't found but one set of bones in the ashes of the house, so we knew they'd be looking for us. Kit made sure we'd be prepared. He gave me lectures on how a gun works, how to take it apart and put it back together again, in case I had to carry on without him. He said that if the Devil came at me, I could shoot him with a gun.

Holly Sargis: Kit made me get my books from school, so I wouldn't fall behind. We'd be starting a new life, he said. And we'd have to change our names. His would be James. Mine would be Priscilla. We'd hide out like spies, somewhere in the North, where people didn't ask a lot of questions. I could have snuck out the back or hid in the boiler room, I suppose, but I sensed that my destiny now lay with Kit, for better or for worse, and it was better to spend a week with one who loved me for what I was than years of loneliness.

Holly Sargis: Kit left a record playing over and over for the District Attorney to find. He was gambling for time.

Holly Sargis: Then sure enough, Dad found out I'd been running around behind his back. He was madder than I'd ever seen him. As punishment for deceiving him, he went and shot my dog. He made me take extra lessons every day after school and wait there till he came to pick me up. He said that if the piano didn't keep me off the streets, maybe the clarinet would.

Holly Sargis: Kit made a solemn vow that he would always stand beside me and let nothing come between us. He wrote this out in writing, put the paper in a box with some of our little tokens and things, then sent it off in a balloon he'd found while on the garbage route. His heart was filled with longing as he watched it drift off. Something must've told him that we'd never live these days of happiness again, that they were gone forever.

Holly Sargis: Did it go the way it was supposed to?...Is that all there is to it?...Gosh, what was everybody talking about?...Well, I'm glad it's over. For a while, I was afraid I might die before it happened. Had a wreck, or some deal like that.

Holly Sargis: And as he lay in bed, in the middle of the night, he always heard a noise like somebody was holding a seashell against his ear. And sometimes he'd see me coming toward him in beautiful white robes, and I'd put my cold hand on his forehead.

Holly Sargis: In the stench and slime of the feedlot, he'd remember how I looked the night before, how I ran my hand through his hair and traced the outline of his lips with my fingertip. He wanted to die with me, and I dreamed of being lost forever in his arms....I didn't mind telling Kit about stuff like this, cause strange things happened in his life, too, and some of the stuff he did was strange. For instance, he faked his signature whenever he used it, to keep other people from forging important papers with his name.

Holly Sargis: Kit went to work in the feedlot while I carried on with my studies. Little by little we fell in love. As I'd never been popular in school and didn't have a lot of personality, I was surprised that he took such a liking to me, especially when he could've had any other girl in town if he'd given it half a try. He said that I was grand, though, that he wasn't interested in me for sex and that coming from him, this was a compliment. He'd never met a fifteen year-old girl who behaved more like a grownup and wasn't giggly. He didn't care what anybody else thought. I looked good to him, and whatever I did was okay, and if I didn't have a lot to say, well, that was okay, too. Of course, I had to keep all this a secret from my dad. He would've had a fit, since Kit was ten years older than me and came from the wrong side of the tracks, so called. Our time with each other was limited and each lived for the precious hours when he or she could be with the other, away from all the cares of the world.

Holly Sargis: [[James Dean] He was handsomer than anybody I'd ever met. He looked just like ].

Holly Sargis: Little did I realize that what began in the alleys and backways of this quiet town would end in the Badlands of Montana.

Holly Sargis: My mother died of pneumonia when I was just a kid. My father had kept their wedding cake in the freezer for ten whole years. After the funeral, he gave it to the yardman. He tried to act cheerful, but he could never be consoled by the little stranger he found in his house. Then, one day, hoping to begin a new life away from the scene of all his memories, he moved us from Texas to Ft. Dupree, South Dakota.

Evelyn: It was you! It was you! You did it!

Rachel: What did I do?

Evelyn: You let the dead get in.

Evelyn: You let the dead get in.

Evelyn: They don't dream, you know. The dead don't dream, and the dead never sleep. They wait, they watch for a way to get back. My baby told me to, just like your's will tell you, and you have to do it. You have to send it back. They stopped me. Don't let them stop you. You have to listen to the voices.