- Della Redsmith: I guess knowing my son as well as I did I shouldn't be surprised that he took up with a border tramp.
- Lina Ramirez: Maybe he wanted someone to remind him of his mother.
- Hec Ramsey: I'll tell you, this whole operation been done in cold blood, and I'm gettin' mean enough to bite somebody pretty soon.
- Hec Ramsey: You think this police department ought to go around chasing people out of town because they haven't done anything?
- Chief Oliver Stamp: If they're a threat to the peace of the community, yes.
- Virgil Bassett: You start lockin' up people for what they're thinkin', you gonna have an empty town, mister.
- Hec Ramsey: [to Chief Stamp] See, you got some funny ways about you, couple three of them I don't much like, but you're a young fella with a lot of ways to go, and how you choose those ways is gonna decide whether you're one kind of man or another. Up to you, and I got work to do.
- Hec Ramsey: Oliver, please, Bassett is not a kid and he won't scare; and, if he decides to trade his life for somebody else's, there is no way anybody is gonna stop him.
- Chief Oliver Stamp: You're supposed to be a police officer.
- Hec Ramsey: That's one of the things I don't like about you.
- Hec Ramsey: Tomorrow's Sunday and maybe Arthur Lambert will be in a Chicago church, maybe Emile Uker'll be in a penny arcade playin' games and eatin' candy... and maybe I'll grow a tail and run in the Kentucky Derby.