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Gramp Maple: But let me tell you one thing, Mr. Squier. The woman don't live or ever did live that's worth five thousand dollars!
Alan Squier: Well, let me tell you something. You're a forgetful old fool. Any woman's worth everything that any man has to give: anguish, ecstasy, faith, jealousy, love, hatred, life, or death. Don't you see that's the whole excuse for our existence? It's what makes the whole thing possible and tolerable.
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Alan Squier: The trouble with me, Gabrielle, is I, I belong to a vanishing race. I'm one of the intellectuals.
Gabrielle Maple: That, that means you've got brains!
Alan Squier: Hmmm. Yes. Brains without purpose. Noise without sound, shape without substance.
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Gabrielle Maple: Petrified forest is a lot of dead trees in the desert that have turned to stone. Here's a good specimen.
Alan Squier: So that was once a tree? Hmmm. Petrified forest, eh? Suitable haven for me. Well, perhaps that's what I'm destined to become, an interesting fossil for future study.
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Alan Squier: Let there be killing. All this evening I've had a feeling of destiny closing in.
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[talking about signing his $5,000.00 life insurance policy over to Gabby]
Mrs. Chisholm: You're in love with her, aren't you?
Alan Squier: Yes, I suppose I am. And not unreasonably. She has heroic stuff in her. She may be one of the immortal women of France. Another Joan of Arc, George Sand, Madame Curie, or du Barry. I want to show her that I believe in her, and how else can I do it? Living, I'm worth nothing to her. Dead, I can buy her the tallest cathedrals, golden vineyards, and dancing in the streets. One well-directed bullet will accomplish all that, and it'll earn a measure of reflected glory for him that fired it and him that stopped it. This document will be my ticket to immortality. It'll inspire people to say of me, "There was an artist who died before his time." Will you do it, Duke?
Duke Mantee: I'll be glad to.
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Jackie: Now, just behave yourself and nobody'll get hurt. This is Duke Mantee, the world-famous killer, and he's hungry!
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Duke Mantee: Maybe you're right, pal.
Alan Squier: Oh, I'm eternally right. But what good does it do me?
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Alan Squier: Tell us, Duke, what kind of a life have you had?
Duke Mantee: What do you think? I spent most of my time since I grew up in jail. And it looks like I'll spend the rest of my life dead.
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Duke Mantee: You can talk sitting down; I seen ya' doing it.
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Duke Mantee: Here is to happy days.
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Gramp Maple: Say Duke... Did you mean to hit him in the hand, or was that just a bad shot?
Duke Mantee: It was a bad shot, Pop. I had to get off fast. Now I let that mug make a mug out of me, but don't let anybody try it again. Just keep in mind that I and the boys is candidates for hangin'. And the first time any one of ya makes a wrong move, I'm gonna kill the whole lot of ya!
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Mrs. Chisholm: I was married to this pillar of the mortgage loan and trust. He took my soul and stenciled it on a card and filed. And that's where I've been ever since, in an odd metal cabinet.
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Alan Squier: You've got to die. Then die for freedom. That's worth it. Don't give up your life for anything so cheap as revenge.
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Alan Squier: l've never kidded anybody, outside of myself.
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Jason Maple: What business have I got? Miserable little service station on the edge of nowhere.
Gramp Maple: Well, maybe that's all you're good for.
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Alan Squier: You better come with me, Duke. I'm planning to buried in the Petrified Forest. I've formed a theory about that that would interest you. It's the graveyard of the civilization that's shot from under us. The world of outmoded ideas. They're all so many dead stumps in the desert. That's where I belong. And so do you, Duke. For you're the last great apostle of rugged individualism.
Duke Mantee: Maybe you're right, pal.
Alan Squier: Oh, I'm eternally right. But what good does it do me?
Duke Mantee: I couldn't say.
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Gabrielle Maple: [last lines, quoting the poem "Ballad Written for a Bridegroom" by Francois Villon] Thus in your field my fruit of harvestry will thrive, for the fruit is like me that I set. God bids me tend it with good husbandry. This is the end for which we twain are met.
The Petrified Forest Quotes
Extended Reading
