The Last of the Mohicans Quotes

British Officer: You call yourself a patriot, and loyal subject to the Crown?

Hawkeye: I do not call myself subject to much at all.

Duncan: There is a war on. How is it you are headed west?

Hawkeye: Well, we kinda face to the north and real sudden-like turn left.

Colonel Munro: And how am I to know it wasn't a raid by thieves?

Hawkeye: The cabin was attacked by a war party fighting with the French. They're sweeping south along the frontier attacking farms and Mohawk villages, all the men are stuck here.

Colonel Munro: I need proof more convincing than this man's opinion before I weaken the fort's defenses by releasing the militia.

Jack Winthrop: Chingachgook had the same opinion about the raid; taken together that's gospel. Your fort will stand or fall depending on Webb's reinforcements, not the presence of the Colonials.

Colonel Munro: I judge military matters here, not you.

Hawkeye: Your judgment is not more important than their right under agreement with Webb to defend their farms and families. Major Hayward was there, he was at John Cameron's, he saw what it was.

Colonel Munro: What exactly did you see Major?

Duncan: [glancing at Cora] I saw nothing that would lead me to the conclusion that it was other than a raid by savages bent on thievery.

Hawkeye: You're a liar.

Colonel Munro: [as Duncan lunges for Hawkeye] Major!

[to Hawkeye]

Colonel Munro: Montcalm is a soldier and a gentleman, not a butcher.

Hawkeye: Easy for you to suppose, it's their women and children on the farms, not yours!

Colonel Munro: You forget yourself, sir.

Jack Winthrop: We're not forgetting Webb's promise.

Colonel Munro: British promises are honored. And the militia will not be released, because I need more definite proof than this man's word.

Jack Winthrop: Nathaniel's word's been good on thie frontier a long time before you got here.

Colonel Munro: This meeting is over, the militia stays.

Jack Winthrop: Does the rule of English law no longer govern? Has it been replaced by absolutism?

Hawkeye: If English law cannot be trusted maybe these people would do better making their own peace with the French.

Duncan: That is sedition!

Hawkeye: That is the truth.

Duncan: I'll have you beaten from this fort!

Hawkeye: Someday, I think you and I are going to have a serious disagreement.

Colonel Munro: Anyone fomenting or advocating the leaving of Fort William Henry will be hung for sedition. Anyone actually CAUGHT leaving will be shot for desertion. Now my decision is final. Get out!

Cora Munro: A breed apart, we make no sense?

Hawkeye: In your particular case, Miss, I'd make an allowance.

Cora Munro: Thank you so much.

Cora Munro: Why were those people living in this defenseless place?

Hawkeye: After seven years indentured service in Virginia, they headed out here 'cause the frontier's the only land available to poor people. Out here, they're beholden to none. Not living by another's leave.

Cora Munro: He saved us. We're alive only because of him.

Colonel Munro: The man encouraged the colonials to desert in this very room and in my presence! Sir! He is guilty of sedition. He must be tried and hanged like any other criminal, regardless of what he did for my children.

Cora Munro: But he knew the consequences, and he stayed. Are those the actions of a criminal?

Duncan: And who empowered these colonials to pass judgement on England's policies, and to come and go without so much as a "by your leave"?

Cora Munro: They do not live their lives "by your leave"! They hack it out of the wilderness with their own two hands, bearing their children along the way!

Duncan: You are defending him because you've become infatuated with him!

Cora Munro: Duncan, you are a man with a few admirable qualities, but taken as a whole, I was wrong to have thought so highly of you.

Cora Munro: What are you looking at, sir?

Hawkeye: I'm looking at you, miss.

Cora Munro: They're going to hang you. Why didn't you leave when you had the chance?

Hawkeye: Because what I'm interested in is right here.

Cora Munro: Justice? If that's justice than the sooner French guns blow the English out of America the better it will be for the people here.

Colonel Munro: You do not know what you're saying!

Cora Munro: Yes I do, I know exactly what I'm saying! And if it is sedition, than I am guilty of sedition too.

Hawkeye: My father's people say that at the birth of the sun and of his brother the moon, their mother died. So the sun gave to the earth her body, from which was to spring all life. And he drew forth from her breast the stars, and the stars he threw into the night sky to remind him of her soul. So there's the Cameron's monument. My folks' too, I guess.

Cora Munro: You are right, Mr. Poe. We do not understand what is happening here. And it's not as I imagined it would be, thinking of it in Boston and in London...

Hawkeye: Sorry to disappoint you.

Cora Munro: No, on the contrary. It is more deeply stirring to my blood than any imagining could possibly have been.

Hawkeye: My father warned me about you...

Cora Munro: [interupting] Your Father?

Hawkeye: Chingachgook, he warned me about people like you.

Cora Munro: Oh, he did?

Hawkeye: He said "Do not try to understand them".

Cora Munro: What?

Hawkeye: Yes, and, "do not try to make them understand you. That is because they are a breed apart and make no sense".

Jack Winthrop: You're not coming with us?

Hawkeye: I've got a reason to stay.

Jack Winthrop: That reason wear a striped skirt and work in the surgery?

Hawkeye: It does. No offense, but it's a better looking reason than you, Jack Winthrop.

[last lines]

[Director's Expanded Edition]

Chingachgook: The frontier moves with the sun and pushes the Red Man of these wilderness forests in front of it until one day there will be nowhere left. Then our race will be no more, or be not us.

Hawkeye: That is my father's sadness talking.

Chingachgook: No, it is true. The frontier place is for people like my white son and his woman and their children. And one day there will be no more frontier. And men like you will go too, like the Mohicans. And new people will come, work, struggle. Some will make their life. But once, we were here.

Maj. Duncan Heyward: Might I inquire after the situation sir, given that I've seen the French engineering from the ridge above.

Colonel Munro: The situation is that his guns are bigger than mine and he has more of them. We keep our heads down while his troops dig 30 yards of trench a day. When those trenches are 200 yards from the fort and within range, he'll bring in his 15-inch mortars, lob explosive rounds over our walls, and pound us to dust.

Maj. Duncan Heyward: I thought all our colonial scouts were in the militia. The militia is fighting the French in the north.

Hawkeye: I ain't your scout. And we sure ain't no damn militia.

Duncan: You there, Scout! We must rest soon, the women are tired.

Magua: No, two leagues, better water. We stop there.

Duncan: No, we'll stop in the glade just ahead. When the ladies are rested, we will proceed. Do you understand?

Magua: [speaking Huron] Magua understands that the white man is a dog to his women. When they are tired, he puts down his tomahawk to feed their laziness.

Duncan: Excuse me, what did you say?

Magua: Magua say... he understand the English very well.

[last lines]

Chingachgook: Great Spirit, Maker of All Life. A warrior goes to you swift and straight as an arrow shot into the sun. Welcome him and let him take his place at the council fire of my people. He is Uncas, my son. Tell them to be patient and ask death for speed; for they are all there but one - I, Chingachgook - Last of the Mohicans.

[Duncan aims a pistol at Hawkeye]

Hawkeye: Haven't you got anything better to do on the lake today, Major?

Duncan: [puts away his pistol] When you fall back into English hands I'll have you hanged!

Hawkeye: Take me!

Duncan: [as he is being forced away] My compliments, sir! Take her and get out!

Cora Munro: Duncan! What are they doing to Duncan?

Duncan: [after Uncas spooks the horses to chase them off] Why is he loosing the horses?

Hawkeye: Why don't you ask him?

Uncas: Too easy to track; they'd be heard for miles. Find yourself a musket.

[first lines]

Title Card: 1757 / The American colonies. / It is the 3rd year of the war between England and France for the possession of the continent. / Three men, the last of a vanishing people, are on the frontier west of the Hudson River.

Cora Munro: Yes! Go ahead!

Duncan: What the bloody hell plan is this?

Cora Munro: I want you to go!

Hawkeye: If we go, there's a chance there won't be a fight. There's no powder. If we don't go in that, there's no chance. None! Do you understand?

Duncan: Coward!

Cora Munro: Our father - Did you see my father?

Hawkeye: From a distance.

Cora Munro: l don't know what to say, Duncan. l truly wish they did, but my feelings don't - don't go beyond friendship. Don't you see?

Duncan: Respect and friendship. lsn't that a reasonable basis for a man and a woman to be married? And all else may grow in time?

Cora Munro: Some say that's the way of it.

Alice Munro: l shan't sleep tonight. What an adventure. Have you seen the red men?

Duncan: A few.

Duncan: Might l inquire after the situation, sir, given that l've seen the French engineering from the ridge above?

Colonel Munro: The situation is, his guns are bigger than mine and he has more of them. We keep our heads down while his troops dig 30 yards of trench a day. When those trenches are 200 yards from the fort and within range, he'll bring in his 15-inch mortars, lob explosive rounds over our walls and pound us to dust.

Duncan: They look to be 300 yards out. lf they're digging 30 yards a day, you have three days.

Colonel Munro: Damn. Damn.

Ian: What do we do about being under Crown law?

Jack Winthrop: l believe if they set aside their law as and when they wish, their law no longer has rightful authority over us. All they have over us then is tyranny. And l will not live under that yoke.

Colonel Munro: l have lived to see something which l never expected. A British officer afraid to support another.

Duncan: Webb can burn in hell. And we'll go back and dig our graves behind those ramparts.

Duncan: Where are we going?

Hawkeye: Nowhere.

Hawkeye: Our only hope is that they pass us by.

Duncan: lf they do?

Hawkeye: Take the south rim down the mountain. lt's 12 miles cross country to Fort Edward.

Duncan: And if they don't?

Hawkeye: You'll just have to forego the pleasure of hanging me.