- Dixie: [to Josh Hollister] You sorry, miserable excuse for a human being! You'll never make a man if you live to be a *thousand!
- Chief Sheriff Oliver B. Stamp: [to Ramsey, who is reading a book] Well, Mr. Ramsey, what have you learned from Dr. Freud?
- Hec Ramsey, Deputy Sheriff: The paranoids are out to get me.
- Hec Ramsey, Deputy Sheriff: [In response to Chief Stamp's accusing Ramsey of police brutality] Them that haven't got the guts to resist arrest haven't got the grit to commit a crime.
- Chief Sheriff Oliver B. Stamp: I see. So now you not only arrest the party, you provide the punishment as well?
- Hec Ramsey, Deputy Sheriff: Well, there's extenuating circumstances, like necessary force.
- Chief Sheriff Oliver B. Stamp: And you seem to be evoking it with increasing eventuality. A warning, Mr. Ramsey, on the record: I will no longer tolerate your rampant tendencies toward mayhem!
- Hec Ramsey, Deputy Sheriff: Well, you show me some civilized felons, and then I'm gonna show you some civilized law enforcement.
- [last lines]
- Doc Amos B. Coogan: [with Hec come back to town] Guess I better get ready for an outbreak of correctional and therapeutic mayhem.
- Nora Muldoon: Are you a bachelor, Hec?
- Hec Ramsey: Well, that's what I set out to be, but it's gittin' harder all the time.
- Constable Arne Tornquist: You seen this latest issue of The Gazette?
- Chief Oliver Stamp: No.
- Constable Arne Tornquist: The editor claims that there are six prisoners in this jail and every one of them has a serious injury incurred during apprehension.
- Chief Oliver Stamp: Mr. Ramsey, is this true?
- Hec Ramsey: That is a base canard. It is a bald-headed, barefooted lie.
- Chief Oliver Stamp: You mean they're not hurt.
- Hec Ramsey: I mean there're seven of 'em.
- Chief Oliver Stamp: Is Number Seven all in one piece?
- Hec Ramsey: Except for his teeth.
- Hec Ramsey: You git somethin' masculine out of a fella called Sachet and I'll bathe in the hog trough.
- Hec Ramsey: When a boy gets his growth, he goes where his mind and his muscle and his heart and his conscience takes him.
- Doc Kirby: Why would anyone design an inaccurate gun?
- Hec Ramsey: You go meat-hunting with a shotgun or a rifle. Any handgun in this world, any gun that will fit in your pocket or your purse, is designed for the expressed purpose of killing another human being.
- [Hec enters the barbershop with a seeming hangover, but the night before he was only putting things away after a church social]
- Doc Amos B. Coogan: If foldin' chairs affects you this way, you better swear off.
- Chief Oliver Stamp: I'm apologizing.
- Hec Ramsey: I'm accepting. Just, we don't see eye-to-eye about law enforcement. Kid misbehaves, you tell him to go stand in the corner.
- Chief Oliver Stamp: What's that got to do with anything?
- Hec Ramsey: Well, what if tha kid pulls a gun and tells you to go to Hell?