- Ty Ty Walden: [In response to his son wanting a raincoat] Son, if it starts to rain, you just peel off your clothes and let your skin take care of the rest. God never made a finer raincoat than a man's skin, anyhow.
- Ty Ty Walden: [Expressing his contempt for alcohol] It's all the devil's brew. Cleanest drinking water right in our own back yard. I owe my health and long life to just plain well water.
- Ty Ty Walden: God, give me the strength - to spread out my arms to the ends of my fields. Let me fill up the holes, make the land smooth. You spared my sons, and I'll never dig another hole again. Except to... to plant seeds for things to grow.
- Ty Ty Walden: A what?
- Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate: A albino.
- Ty Ty Walden: What in the pluperfect hell is that, Pluto?
- Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate: Why its one of these all white men. Looks like they made out of chalk. White as cotton. Got white hair. White skin. White eyeballs, even.
- Griselda Walden, Ty Ty's Daughter-in-Law: It's good to see you.
- Will Thompson: You look like you just stepped out a calendar.
- Ty Ty Walden: You boys don't seem to catch on. Its not important that I get money out of God's little acre. The fact that I can walk on it, stand on it, feel God is there.
- Buck Walden: What's all this got to do with me and Griselda?
- Ty Ty Walden: All you boys seem to think about are the things you can see and touch. Well, that ain't livin'. It's the things you feel down inside ya. That's what livin's fer. If you felt more on how Griselda feels inside her, no other man could touch her.
- Dave Dawson: You ain't gonna shoot me now, are ya?
- Uncle Felix: I ain't gonna shoot nobody, son. But, this gun might.
- Buck Walden: What you got for dinner, honey?
- Griselda Walden, Ty Ty's Daughter-in-Law: Same as yesterday, Buck. Bacon fat and grits.
- Buck Walden: I'd like me some fried chicken.
- Ty Ty Walden: When a man has a wife like Griselda, I don't know how he can keep his mind on food all the time.
- Griselda Walden, Ty Ty's Daughter-in-Law: [laughs] Now, quit your teasin' Ty Ty.
- Ty Ty Walden: If the good Lord seen fit to put a beauty like you in our house, I'm gonna take my fill of lookin' while I can.
- Ty Ty Walden: I'm worried about that boy. Who's he go see in town?
- Buck Walden: Oh, he ain't particular. Anything with skirts on.
- Ty Ty Walden: He ain't used to women yet. They can do him harm. He won't know about until it's too late to stop the clock.
- Ty Ty Walden: I'm diggin' for gold!
- Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate: Gold? In the state of Georgia?
- Ty Ty Walden: Bright, yellow gold. Gold coins as big a round as a biscuit. Thousands of 'em.
- Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate: Is that a fact?
- Ty Ty Walden: Gold spoons. Gold plates. Gold forks. And gold thunderbugs, as you wouldn't be surprised.
- Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate: Have you seen 'em? For a fact?
- Ty Ty Walden: Almost.
- Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate: Where?
- Ty Ty Walden: Don't know, exactly. Ain't find any, but, they're there. They're there.
- Will Thompson: When Griselda was workin' in the mill and she walked around in them high heel shoes, there wasn't a man who got a full day's work done.
- Will Thompson: I'm a town boy. I got to be where I can hear a factory whistle blow three times a day and watch those crowds of girls come runnin' out of the company gate, laughin' and screamin', raisin' Cain, faces like flowers.
- Ty Ty Walden: My baby, Darlin' Jill. But, she's too young to go courtin'.
- Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate: I - I don't want to court her. I - I want to marry her.
- Ty Ty Walden: You would, Pluto? You mean it?
- Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate: I'd cut off my right arm to marry her.
- Will Thompson: Darlin' Jill, you in here. Stand up. Let me look at you in the light. Well, well, baby's a full grown woman. Plump as a peach on a branch, ripe and ready to pluck!
- Darlin' Jill: Now that I got such a good look at you, wouldn't you like to come up here and get a good look at me? Huh?
- Dave Dawson: I don't mind.
- Darlin' Jill: Well, what do you say?
- Dave Dawson: Well, well, well you're beautiful.
- Darlin' Jill: Why don't you come up here and say that again.
- Darlin' Jill: I don't know if I'm ready to get married to anybody yet, Pluto. Least of all, you.
- Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate: You don't have to be ready. I"m ready. I'm ready enough for both of us! I'll marry you anytime, daytime, nighttime, all the time. I'm so crazy about you. That's a fact.
- Darlin' Jill: You're belly's too big.
- Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate: Oh, oh, you, you won't let a little thing like that come between us.
- Darlin' Jill: Now, Pluto, if your belly weren't so big, you couldn't be Sheriff. And if you weren't gonna be Sheriff, I don't know if I'd even look at you. And that's a fact.
- Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate: I'm so crazy in love with you, I can't hardly see nothin' else. There's no reason that some day I just don't get so - riled up and so provoked that I just don't take my two hands and - and just...
- Darlin' Jill: And what? What? What would you do, Pluto?
- Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate: I'd tan your hide. I'd tan your hide.
- Griselda Walden, Ty Ty's Daughter-in-Law: No, don't come closer.
- Will Thompson: I just want to touch you, Griselda. Just feel the touch of you.
- Griselda Walden, Ty Ty's Daughter-in-Law: It won't stop there. I just know it won't.
- Buck Walden: You tell him to stop tomcattin' around my wife!
- Ty Ty Walden: Grisellie in this?
- Will Thompson: I didn't say a word about her.
- Buck Walden: No, he don't say nothin', he just looks. And that's plenty.
- Ty Ty Walden: Looks don't hurt anybody, Buck.
- Ty Ty Walden: Buck, if I was you, when I went to bed tonight I'd get down on my knees in the dark and try talkin' to God a little. He can tell you things nobody else can. And maybe He'd tell you how you ought to act with Griselda. He'd tell you if you'd only take the time and trouble to listen. If there's anything in the world He's crazy about, it's seein' a man and a woman in love with each other. To forgive is part of love. When he sees that, He knows the world is runnin' along as slick as grease.
- Uncle Felix: Son, you get up from there and get goin'.
- Dave Dawson: I don't have to do what you say.
- Uncle Felix: It ain't me that's talkin', boy. It's this gun.
- Darlin' Jill: You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Buck.
- Buck Walden: You shut up. You don't look ashamed for anything. You're both a lyin'. A pair of loose fillies.
- Darlin' Jill: If you ain't man enough to hold on to your wife, I'd be ashamed to admit it. I'd just go hide my face someplace.
- Buck Walden: Why don't you stay out of family problems!
- Ty Ty Walden: Go in the house, get some supper, some good night sleep. Maybe tomorrow will be a good day.
- Buck Walden: Pluto, you were there. What happened?
- Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate: Nothin' much.
- Buck Walden: What do you mean by nuthin' much?
- Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate: Nothin' much just means nothin' much, that's all.
- Uncle Felix: Mr. Ty Ty, you oughta' be out raisin' cotton. You're a good farmer - that is, you USED to be. Why, Mr. Ty Ty, you can raise more cotton on this land in one season than you can find gold in a whole lifetime. It's a waste of everything, Mr. Ty Ty, diggin' them holes all over the place.
- Ty Ty Walden: Well, now, I wish I had spent a little more time on the cotton, that's for sure. If I had 20 or 30 bales to tide me over the fall and winter, I could devote all the rest of my time to diggin'!
- Uncle Felix: But Mr. Ty Ty, where're we gonna' get enough grub to carry us through another winter?
- Ty Ty Walden: We use my credit, like we did last winter!
- Uncle Felix: The store man says you ain't got enough credit to grease the end of your nose.
- Ty Ty Walden: Felix, I'm sorry about that, but there's nothing' I can do. I just GOT to go on diggin'. I got the fever! Ya' can't stop the fever!