- Arthur: You hate me, don't you? You hate me so much you're scared shitless! You see, a man tears the wings off a bird and he hates it because it can't fly and then it scares him because he doesn't know what it's good for- floppin' around on the floor like a fish...
- Peter Maguire: Is this your revenge?
- Arthur: You know that the soldier's used to play catch with the breasts of Navajo women. And they were slippery and hard to hang on to and the soldiers, they'd all laugh. Arthur's cruel and I forget why. Well, it's time for them to pay.
- Peter Maguire: How much?
- Arthur: More than this.
- Peter Maguire: This is enough.
- Arthur: Enough? This is nothing, this is only one man's leg. Goddamn you come cheap.
- Arthur: You're gonna hang here with the crows and watch the earth as it dies. You're gonna hang there and have a little chat with your God about what you killed. Your God. It's your God, your God that shames this earth!
- [to Bud]
- Arthur: Do you see?
- [looking over the forest]
- Bud Rickets: No.
- Arthur: You will bloody well hang here until you do. And then you can watch your goddamn machines cut it all down!
- Arthur: [sung in sweat lodge] I'm going to cut my fingers off and make a necklace for your fat fuck white fucking guy.
- Peter Maguire: Your world is turning to shit...
- Wilf: And you feel...?
- Peter Maguire: I feel like somebody has to pay... Somebody has to hurt!
- Peter Maguire: We may be beaten on this one Wilf.
- Wilf: Ah, it's just a long battle, we haven't won yet.
- Wilf: The sweat ceremony is to purify yourself, to give you an insight.
- Peter Maguire: Into what?
- Wilf: Yourself, to help you find out what you really want. But don't be afraid.
- Peter Maguire: Of what?
- Wilf: Of yourself.
- Arthur: You know, maybe if a guy thinks he cuts down our trees, somebody'll cut him. And he'll worry. That'd be something eh? You and me, we could make Bud Rickets worry.
- Peter Maguire: We've been kidnapped, there's a man over there.
- Arthur: He's confused.
- Hunter: Yeah, I think we're all a little bit confused.
- Peter Maguire: My name is Peter Maguire, I'm lawyer from Toronto.
- Arthur: We're doing a ceremony.
- Peter Maguire: You listening to me? I'm a lawyer.
- Arthur: We're visiting our mother.
- Hunter: Lets get the fuck out of here.
- Peter Maguire: What mother? Is his mother my mother, huh?
- Arthur: It's a ritual, it's confusing.
- Arthur: Do you hear your trees? They're crying.
- [sneaking up on Peter and Bud]
- Bud Rickets: Indian give me the creeps. It's like they know something we don't.
- Wilf: The Deceiver. Wiisagejaak was told to teach man how to live in the right way. How to be able to get along with the creatures and the forests. But Wiisagejaak made quarrels; he stained the ground with blood. They told him no more but he didn't listen.
- Peter Maguire: What's the point Wilf, huh? Is there a point?
- Wilf: Wiisagejaak had to be stopped. There was too much blood. He'd become a victim of his own stupid ways. He'd lost himself. He had to be stopped.
- [hinting for Peter to stop Arthur]
- Peter Maguire: Do I have to kill you?
- Arthur: [teasingly puts a knife before him] When you use a knife, you gotta get right between the ribs. If you don't, you just rip the skin, the guy bleeds and he gets pissed off.
- Peter Maguire: [after holding the knife, slams it back down] Fuck you.
- Regional Police Officer #1: Where's the other Indian, what happened to him?
- [referring to Arthur]
- Bud Rickets: He drowned.
- Peter Maguire: But he can be back.
- Peter Maguire: Looks like the moon on a bad day.
- Pilot: Looks like money to me!
- [flying over the clearcut]
- Tom Starblanket: You said we'd win.
- Peter Maguire: I said that we had a chan... , do you mind!
- [to a reporter interupting him]
- Peter Maguire: Where's Wilf? Tell him, I said we had a chance.
- Tom Starblanket: Do you still get paid when you lose?
- Bud Rickets: Victory? Victory? What's all this talk about victory? Did our baseball team play today? Did we win? I mean, I should know, I coach the darn team!
- [to reporters]
- Bud Rickets: Bud Rickets, filthy industrialist. Where's your halo Mr. Maguire?
- Peter Maguire: I keep it in my briefcase, which is on your road where your machinery is destroying the forest.
- Peter Maguire: Why didn't they arrest you?
- Tom Starblanket: Well, I'm 6'5, I'm too big to fit in the cruiser. Mounties are lazy kind of guys, eh?
- Peter Maguire: They were regional police.
- Tom Starblanket: All police are Mounties.
- Peter Maguire: Are you Ojibway?
- Arthur: No.
- Peter Maguire: Cree?
- Arthur: Same thing.
- Peter Maguire: No they're not.
- Arthur: No?
- Peter Maguire: No.
- Arthur: Well, do you know about these things?
- Peter Maguire: Don't think I'm completely ignorant about the Native cultures. I've read quite a few books on them.
- Arthur: Books. Literature. You know, the white man makes me laugh with his writing.
- Peter Maguire: Well, the early Huron didn't laugh, they thought writing was magic.
- Arthur: Is that a fact? You know, us Indian folks have an oral tradition.
- Peter Maguire: I know that.
- Arthur: So the Man Who Talks thinks he knows things.
- Arthur: Tell 'em that the noise is bothering you. Be polite and see where it gets you with that scum.
- [referring to Peter's neighbors]
- Peter Maguire: This is Tom Starblanket's truck. He's a good friend of mine, he wouldn't want anybody hurt.
- Arthur: Do you think if I cut off your little whistle, he'd get mad at me?
- Peter Maguire: Put a stop to this.
- Wilf: The influence of an elder can be overrated.
- [after Arthur kidnaps Bud]
- Bud Rickets: What happened to the last guy you lost a court case to?
- Peter Maguire: The Inuit fed him to their dogs.
- Bud Rickets: You've got to clean it first.
- [referring to Arthur's fish]
- Arthur: It's Indian style. Scales, guts and all.
- Bud Rickets: It's not Indian, that's lazy.
- Bud Rickets: You stop using paper products and we'll stop cutting your trees.
- Peter Maguire: You commit crimes, admit it!
- Bud Rickets: And you reap the benefits, just admit it!
- Peter Maguire: You disappoint me Arthur. Why you doing this? What's this all about?
- Arthur: What, you wanna go with those guys? Catch up.
- [referring to hunters]
- Peter Maguire: You'd shoot me.
- Arthur: Maybe. Might shoot you if you stay too.
- Bud Rickets: He's a man of action our Arthur. We understand each other. I don't know where you fit. Choosing your side so conscientiously. Can we call this a ah... miscalculation?
- [mocking Peter]
- Bud Rickets: There's things here I don't understand, so enlighten me. Tell me what my mill has destroyed. Tell me about your traditional way of life. Tell me about freezing to death, that was tradition wasn't it? Tell me about your wars. Tell me about your old people. Tell me about your children, starving winter after winter after winter. Tradition! The mill has given you roads, transportation, medical services, stores, schools, decent houses, sewage, plumbing...
- Arthur: Reserve plumbing don't work.
- Bud Rickets: Well get it fixed chief, it's free! Put your bottle on the table and pick up the phone.
- Arthur: Phones don't work.
- Bud Rickets: Oh, so it's the phones too, is it?
- Arthur: Busted. Everything's busted.
- Bud Rickets: Oh poor Arthur. Poor, poor Arthur.
- Peter Maguire: He's going to kill you.
- Bud Rickets: Well, lucky you. You get to defend in another losing cause. What'll the government pay for our Arthur's defense? Another installment on your Porsche? The government will want it to look good. Justice seem to be done, that ought to be worth a nice buck.
- Arthur: You think I'm cruel. You don't forget about the trees and the kids born stupid and the judges who laugh. You don't forget! Arthur will still be cruel.