The Quick and the Dead

“That man…the one who had coffee here.   He killed the man in the loft.”

“You’re alive, Duncan.  It’s all right.”

“A man is dead.  He was killed because of me.”

“He was killed because he was a thief.  When a man takes a gun in his hand against other men he must expect to be killed.  He becomes the enemy of all men when he breaks the laws of society.”

Exchange between Duncan and Susanna McKaskel in The Quick and the Dead by Louis L’Amour

“You got no time to study out here.  You see, and you act.  Only you don’t shoot at movement.  You never squeeze off your shot until you know exactly what you’re shootin’ at.  Tenderfeet, they shoot anything that moves.  They kill cows, horses, dogs an’ each other.

“Out here we kill just what we need to live, just like a wolf does, or a bear.  Not to say they won’t kill once in a while just to be killin’, but they’re animals, boy, you’re a man…or about to be one.” – Con Vallian speaking to Tom McKaskel in The Quick and the Dead by Louis L’Amour