Raintree County Quotes

Do you like Raintree County?

•  
• 
•  
• Favorite

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles: (to the photographer, who has just taken the graduating class portrait) Mr. Sterling, you have made us immortal. (imdb.com)

Ellen Shawnessy: Did you ever hear your father's sermon on the evils of tobacco? Ends with a regular poem: "Some do it chew, and some do it smoke, while some it up their noses do poke."
John Wickliff Shawnessy: I do all three at the same time. (imdb.com)

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles: Greatness? Ha! If that great philosopher, Socrates, were living today, he'd be reduced to sitting on a cracker barrel, chewing tobacco. That's what America does for greatness. (imdb.com)

T.D. Shawnessy: (to Flash, who is drinking beer in public) Flash Perkins, don't you know that your body is the temple of the spirit, and you defile and pollute it with that Devil's brew you have there?
Orville 'Flash' Perkins: (Nonchalantly) Why, if you say so, pappy...
T.D. Shawnessy: Why don't you come 'round to our next temperance rally. Come 'round and take the Total Abstinence Pledge.
Orville 'Flash' Perkins: Why, pappy, I'll take that pledge right now.
T.D. Shawnessy: Orville, we want men to take that pledge only when they're sober.
Orville 'Flash' Perkins: But if they're sober, what's the point in havin' them take the pledge?
(Everybody laughs) (imdb.com)

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles: (Referring to the fact that Mr. Gray, an old man, has managed to marry Lydia, a beautiful young woman) How in the entire realm of plausibility did that chilly January win such a blithesome May? (imdb.com)

Man in crowd: (the professor is putting money on a footrace between Flash and Johnny) That there's gold!
Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles: My yearly stipend as a teacher. A molder of young minds.
Man in crowd: Fifty dollars!
Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles: It's not much, but neither are the minds I mold. (imdb.com)

Susanna Drake: That 4th of July race... what happens when you win?
John Wickliff Shawnessy: Well, according to a friend of mine, if I win, a beautiful girl will place a garland of oak leaves on my sun-colored locks.
Susanna Drake: I'd like to be that girl.
John Wickliff Shawnessy: Maybe it can be arranged?
Susanna Drake: Oh, it can be arranged, all right. *I'll* arrange it. (imdb.com)

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles: (On the back of the train, leaving town in a hurry) Goodbye, dear friend. Remember me as a man who loves Raintree County, but just happens to loathe most of the people in it. (imdb.com)

Susanna Drake: Johnny, I had to come back. I'm going to have a baby. (imdb.com)

John Wickliff Shawnessy: (On the riverboat with Susanna, visiting the South for the first time) You were right, Mrs. Shawnessy, I like your river. I really do. It even smells good.
Susanna Drake: I knew that you'd understand it. Which is more than most Yankees do. Now, that's something I don't understand. 'Cause all you have to do is go South once and you LOVE it!
John Wickliff Shawnessy: Well, to us Yankees, the South is not too easy to understand... You ever read "Uncle Tom's Cabin"?
Susanna Drake: (Shocked) "Uncle Tom's Cabin"? Phoo... I haven't married an abolitionist, have I?
John Wickliff Shawnessy: That is the skeleton in my closet.
Susanna Drake: Now, you mustn't joke about it.
Susanna Drake: (Arranging a vast collection of dolls on her bed) Anyway, there's worse things than being an abolitionist.
John Wickliff Shawnessy: Like what?
Susanna Drake: Like having Negro blood in you. Isn't it funny? Just one little teeny drop and a person's all Negro. A person can't always tell, either. (imdb.com)

Cousin Sam: We in the South dream of a great republic on the soil of America. Within its pillared homes dwell the most beautiful women.
Bobby Drake: (Chuckling) Oh, Sam, you are wonderful. You shovel that stuff with a golden pitchfork! (imdb.com)

Susanna Drake: Cousin Sam, John doesn't like slavery.
Cousin Sam: Does John like the "wage slavery" of the North? (imdb.com)

John Wickliff Shawnessy: (People are gathering in the town center) What's going on here?
Ellen Shawnessy: You haven't heard? They've attacked Fort Sumter. It means war sure as anything.
T.D. Shawnessy: I'm not so sure. Now, say what you will, Americans will never fight each other. We'll settle our difficulties peacefully. (imdb.com)

T.D. Shawnessy: War is the most monstrous of man's illusions. Any idea worth anything is worth not fighting for. (imdb.com)

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles: (to John and Flash, sitting in the woods not far from Confederate lines) Comrades in arms, a toast. To all the men who go out and die, and merely because they have the rotten luck to be born one side or another of a mountain or a creek...
Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles: (Takes a swig) And here's to sleep...
Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles: (Takes another swig) Let's get a good night of it. Because tomorrow, crusader, you're starting a journey, to a new and unknown land: a place called Hell. (imdb.com)

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles: (Narrating) May the 16th, 1864. Resaca, Georgia. Another day of dramatic corpse-making. (imdb.com)

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles: Take it from one, dear boy, who has dabbled in many a garden of delight: the home-grown tomatoes are always best. (imdb.com)

John Wickliff Shawnessy: My students seem to enjoy creepin' up on me.
Nell Gaither: They're all in love with you.
John Wickliff Shawnessy: Teachers get fallen in love with. It's an occupational hazard. (imdb.com)