Raintree County

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles:
[to the photographer, who has just taken the graduating class portrait] Mr. Sterling, you have made us immortal.

Ellen Shawnessy:
Did you ever hear your father's sermon on the evils of tobacco? Ends with a regular poem: "Some do it chew, and some do it smoke, while some it up their noses do poke."

John Wickliff Shawnessy:
I do all three at the same time.

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles:
Greatness? Ha! If that great philosopher, Socrates, were living today, he'd be reduced to sitting on a cracker barrel, chewing tobacco. That's what America does for greatness.

T.D. Shawnessy:
[to Flash, who is drinking beer in public] Flash Perkins, don't you know that your body is the temple of the spirit, and you defile and pollute it with that Devil's brew you have there?

Orville 'Flash' Perkins:
[Nonchalantly] Why, if you say so, pappy...

T.D. Shawnessy:
Why don't you come 'round to our next temperance rally. Come 'round and take the Total Abstinence Pledge.

Orville 'Flash' Perkins:
Why, pappy, I'll take that pledge right now.

T.D. Shawnessy:
Orville, we want men to take that pledge only when they're sober.

Orville 'Flash' Perkins:
But if they're sober, what's the point in havin' them take the pledge? [Everybody laughs]

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles:
[Referring to the fact that Mr. Gray, an old man, has managed to marry Lydia, a beautiful young woman] How in the entire realm of plausibility did that chilly January win such a blithesome May?

Man in crowd:
[the professor is putting money on a footrace between Flash and Johnny] That there's gold!

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles:
My yearly stipend as a teacher. A molder of young minds.

Man in crowd:
Fifty dollars!

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles:
It's not much, but neither are the minds I mold.

Susanna Drake:
That 4th of July race... what happens when you win?

John Wickliff Shawnessy:
Well, according to a friend of mine, if I win, a beautiful girl will place a garland of oak leaves on my sun-colored locks.

Susanna Drake:
I'd like to be that girl.

John Wickliff Shawnessy:
Maybe it can be arranged?

Susanna Drake:
Oh, it can be arranged, all right. *I'll* arrange it.

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles:
[On the back of the train, leaving town in a hurry] Goodbye, dear friend. Remember me as a man who loves Raintree County, but just happens to loathe most of the people in it.

Susanna Drake:
Johnny, I had to come back. I'm going to have a baby.

John Wickliff Shawnessy:
[On the riverboat with Susanna, visiting the South for the first time] You were right, Mrs. Shawnessy, I like your river. I really do. It even smells good.

Susanna Drake:
I knew that you'd understand it. Which is more than most Yankees do. Now, that's something I don't understand. 'Cause all you have to do is go South once and you LOVE it!

John Wickliff Shawnessy:
Well, to us Yankees, the South is not too easy to understand... You ever read "Uncle Tom's Cabin"?

Susanna Drake:
[Shocked] "Uncle Tom's Cabin"? Phoo... I haven't married an abolitionist, have I?

John Wickliff Shawnessy:
That is the skeleton in my closet.

Susanna Drake:
Now, you mustn't joke about it.

Susanna Drake:
[Arranging a vast collection of dolls on her bed] Anyway, there's worse things than being an abolitionist.

John Wickliff Shawnessy:
Like what?

Susanna Drake:
Like having Negro blood in you. Isn't it funny? Just one little teeny drop and a person's all Negro. A person can't always tell, either.

Cousin Sam:
We in the South dream of a great republic on the soil of America. Within its pillared homes dwell the most beautiful women.

Bobby Drake:
[Chuckling] Oh, Sam, you are wonderful. You shovel that stuff with a golden pitchfork!

Susanna Drake:
Cousin Sam, John doesn't like slavery.

Cousin Sam:
Does John like the "wage slavery" of the North?

John Wickliff Shawnessy:
[People are gathering in the town center] What's going on here?

Ellen Shawnessy:
You haven't heard? They've attacked Fort Sumter. It means war sure as anything.

T.D. Shawnessy:
I'm not so sure. Now, say what you will, Americans will never fight each other. We'll settle our difficulties peacefully.

T.D. Shawnessy:
War is the most monstrous of man's illusions. Any idea worth anything is worth not fighting for.

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles:
[to John and Flash, sitting in the woods not far from Confederate lines] Comrades in arms, a toast. To all the men who go out and die, and merely because they have the rotten luck to be born one side or another of a mountain or a creek...

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles:
[Takes a swig] And here's to sleep...

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles:
[Takes another swig] Let's get a good night of it. Because tomorrow, crusader, you're starting a journey, to a new and unknown land: a place called Hell.

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles:
[Narrating] May the 16th, 1864. Resaca, Georgia. Another day of dramatic corpse-making.

Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles:
Take it from one, dear boy, who has dabbled in many a garden of delight: the home-grown tomatoes are always best.

John Wickliff Shawnessy:
My students seem to enjoy creepin' up on me.

Nell Gaither:
They're all in love with you.

John Wickliff Shawnessy:
Teachers get fallen in love with. It's an occupational hazard.