- The Sinkiller: Under that heathen blanket, there's a full-blossomed woman built by the devil to drive men crazy.
- Narrator: And this is what the legend says - a flower, known nowhere else, grows from out of the desperate crags where Pearl vanished. Pearl - who was herself a wild flower sprung from the hard clay, quick to blossom and early to die.
- The Sinkiller: Pearl, you're curved in the flesh of temptation. Resistance is going to be a darn sight harder for you than females protected by the shape of sows.
- Sen. Jackson McCanles: So that's where you stand!
- Jesse McCanles: I think I'd rather be on the side of the victims than of the murderers.
- Laura Belle McCanles: [to Pearl] Neither your father nor I found happiness in this world, and I'm afraid neither will you.
- The Sinkiller: I don't really know much about Sam Pierce, oh Lord, but from what I hear, he'd be needing no introduction to you. Seeing how Sam was snatched from his loved ones' arms before they even had time to get a good grip on hm, I'm counting on you to give him a better break up yonder.
- Pearl Chavez: Oh Vashti, why are you so slow?
- Vashti: I don't rightly know, Miss Pearl, except I always have so much to remember.
- Scott Chavez: I plead no mitigating circumstances. They deserved to die, as I deserve to die. For I long since killed a person much superior to either of them - myself. I killed that person the day I gave my family's name to the woman who became my wife. And since I believe the punishment should fit the crime... I suggest you hang me by the neck until I am dead.
- Lewt McCanles: I'm riding back to that hitching post and then turning and starting to shoot.
- Jesse McCanles: It's more than you did for Sam Pierce! Why all the consideration?
- Lewt McCanles: I just don't want them fancy friends of yours to say you had a brother who shot you down in cold blood.
- Jesse McCanles: You mean to shoot down unarmed men?
- Sen. Jackson McCanles: Just like rattlesnakes if they cross that line!
- Pearl Chavez: And you'll forget about... about tonight, won't you? You'll forget it?
- Jesse McCanles: No, I don't think I'll forget. I don't think I'll ever be able to. I shouldn't have told you the way I felt. It wasn't fair. There I go again, trying to be fair.
- Lem Smoot: There's a funny glow in the sky tonight, ain't there? I remember once hearing one of them injun legends about how their ancestors lit bonfires in the sky when the chief's son was dying.
- Lem Smoot: Jackson, you and I fought to build this State of Texas and I aim to see these men perform their duties, peacefully and as authorized.
- Sen. Jackson McCanles: Is that so? Well, I'm gonna shoot any trespasser that comes on my property. If you don't like that, Lem Smoot, you can lump it - you and the State of Texas.