50 Best No Country for Old Men Quotes

Llewelyn: Yeah, I'm going to bring you something, alright. I decided to make you a special project of mine. You ain't going have to come looking for me at all.
[Moss hangs up the phone]

Ed: That man that shot you died in prison.
Ellis: Angola. Yeah...
Ed: What you'd done he had been released?
Ellis: Oh, I dunno. Nothing. Wouldn't be no point in it.
Ed: I'm kindly surprised to hear you say that.
Ellis: Well all the time ya spend trying to get back what's been took from ya, more is going out the door. After a while you just have to try to get a tourniquet on it. Your granddad never asked me to sign on as a deputy.

Anton: [indicating bag of cashews] How much?
Gas: Sixty-nine cent.
Anton: This. And the gas.
Gas: Y'all gettin' any rain up your way?
Anton: What way would that be?
Gas: I seen you was from Dallas.
Anton: What business is it of yours where I'm from, friendo?
Gas: I didn't mean nothin' by it.
Anton: Didn't mean nothin'.
Gas: I was just passin' the time. If you don't wanna accept that I don't know what else to do for you. Will there be something else?
Anton: I don't know. Will there?
Gas: Is somethin' wrong?
Anton: With what?
Gas: With anything?
Anton: Is that what you're asking me? Is there something wrong with anything?
Gas: Will there be anything else?
Anton: You already asked me that.
Gas: Well... I need to see about closin'.
Anton: See about closing.
Gas: Yessir.
Anton: What time do you close?
Gas: Now. We close now.
Anton: Now is not a time. What time do you close?

Carla: You don't have to do this.
Anton: [smiles] People always say the same thing.
Carla: What do they say?
Anton: They say, "You don't have to do this."
Carla: You don't.
Anton: Okay.
[Chigurh flips a coin and covers it with his hand]
Anton: This is the best I can do. Call it.
Carla: I knowed you was crazy when I saw you sitting there. I knowed exactly what was in store for me.
Anton: Call it.
Carla: No. I ain't gonna call it.
Anton: Call it.
Carla: The coin don't have no say. It's just you.
Anton: Well, I got here the same way the coin did.

Carson: Call me when you've had enough. I can even let you keep a little of the money.
Llewelyn: If I was cuttin' deals, why wouldn't I go deal with this guy Sugar?
Carson: Oh, no, no. You don't understand. You can't make a deal with him. Even if you gave him the money he'd still kill you just for - inconveniencin' him. He's a peculiar man. You might even say that he has principles. Principles that transcend money or drugs or anything like that. He's not like you. He's not even like me.
Llewelyn: He don't talk as much as you, I give him points for that.

Wendell: That's very linear, Sheriff.
Ed: Well, age will flatten a man.

"Managerial": [to Chigurh] Mind riding bitch?

Loretta: Be careful.
Ed: I always am.
Loretta: Don't get hurt.
Ed: I never do.
Loretta: Don't hurt no one.
Ed: [smiles] Well. If you say so.

Carson: I was wondering...
Man: Yes?
Carson: Could you validate my parking ticket?
Man: An attempt at humor, I suppose.
Carson: I'm sorry... You know, I counted the floors to this building from the street.
Man: [sighs] And?
Carson: There's one missing.
Man: [sarcastically] We'll look into it.

Man: Did I say you could sit?
Carson: No, but you strike me as a man who wouldn't want to waste his chair.

[Anton has just shot the Man who hires Wells in the throat, and is standing over his body]
[to Nervous Accountant]
Anton: Who are you?
Nervous: Me?
Anton: Yes.
Nervous: Nobody... accounting.
Anton: He gave the Mexicans a receiver.
[Anton sighs]
Nervous: He feels... he felt that the more people looking... .
[cut-off by Anton]
Anton: That's foolish. You pick the one right tool.
Nervous: I see. Are you going to shoot me?
Anton: That depends. Do you see me?

[first lines]
Ed: I was sheriff of this county when I was twenty-five years old. Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman; father too. Me and him was sheriffs at the same time; him up in Plano and me out here. I think he's pretty proud of that. I know I was. Some of the old time sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lotta folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarborough'd never carried one; that's the younger Jim. Gaston Boykins wouldn't wear one up in Comanche County. I always liked to hear about the oldtimers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can't help but compare yourself against the oldtimers. Can't help but wonder how they would have operated these times. There was this boy I sent to the 'lectric chair at Huntsville Hill here a while back. My arrest and my testimony. He killt a fourteen-year-old girl. Papers said it was a crime of passion but he told me there wasn't any passion to it. Told me that he'd been planning to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he'd do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell. "Be there in about fifteen minutes". I don't know what to make of that. I sure don't. The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, "O.K., I'll be part of this world."

Llewelyn: [after finding the drug crime scene] ... Where's the last guy? Ultimo hombre. Last man standing. Must've been one.

Llewelyn: [talking over phone] Hello?
Anton: Yes?
Llewelyn: Is, uh, Carson Wells there?
Anton: Not in the sense that you mean. You need to come see me.
Llewelyn: Who is this?
Anton: You know who it is. You need to talk to me.
Llewelyn: I don't need to talk to you.
Anton: I think you do. Do you know where I'm going?
Llewelyn: Why would I care where you're going?
Anton: I know where you are.
Llewelyn: Yeah? Where am I?
Anton: You're in the hospital across the river, but that's not where I'm going. Do you know where I'm going?
Llewelyn: [blood flows on the floor, and so Chigurh lifts his feet and rests them on the bed] Yeah, I know where you're going.
Anton: Alright.
Llewelyn: You know she won't be there.
Anton: It doesn't make any difference where she is.
Llewelyn: So what are you going up there for?
Anton: You know how this is going to turn out, don't you?
Llewelyn: Nope.
Anton: I think you do. So this is what I'll offer - you bring me the money and I'll let her go. Otherwise she's accountable, same as you. That's the best deal you're gonna get. I won't tell you you can save yourself, because you can't.

Ed: Here last week they found this couple out in California. They rent out rooms for old people, kill' em, bury' em in the yard, cash their social security checks. Well, they'd torture 'em first. I don't know why. Maybe the television set was broke.

Llewelyn: And by anybody I mean any swingin' dick.

Carla: Where'd you get the pistol?
Llewelyn: At the gettin' place.
Carla: Did you buy that gun?
Llewelyn: No. I found it.
Carla: Llewelyn!
Llewelyn: What? Quit hollerin'.
Carla: What'd you give for that thing?
Llewelyn: You don't need to know everything, Carla Jean.
Carla: I need to know that.
Llewelyn: You keep runnin' that mouth I'm gonna' take you in the back and screw ya'.
Carla: Big talk.
Llewelyn: Keep it up.
Carla: Fine. I don't wanna' know. I don't even wanna' know where you been all day.
Llewelyn: That'll work.

Poolside: Oh... that's who you keep looking out the window for?
Llewelyn: Half...
Poolside: What else then...?
Llewelyn: Just looking for what's coming...
Poolside: Yeah... But no one ever sees that coming...

Wendell: Aw, hell's bells. They even shot the dog!

El: Yea, well, none of that explains your man though.
Ed: Uh-huh.
El: He's just a goddamn homicidal lunatic, Ed Tom.
Ed: I'm not sure he's a lunatic.
El: Yeah ,well what would you call him?
Ed: Well, sometimes I think he's pretty much a ghost.
El: Oh, he's real all right.
Ed: Oh yeah.
El: Yeah, all that over at the Eagle Hotel? Huh, it's beyond everything.
Ed: Yeah. Got some hard bark on him.
El: Well - well, that don't hardly say it. He shoots the desk clerk one day, walks right back in the next and shoots a retired army colonel.
Ed: It's hard to believe.
El: Just strolls right back into a crime scene. Now, who'd do such a thing? How do you defend against it?

Ed: You ride Winston.
Wendell: You sure?
Ed: Oh, I'm sure. Anything happens to Loretta's horse, I can tell ya I don't want to be the party that was on board.

Ed: [talking to Ellis] I always figured when I got older, God would sorta come inta my life somehow. And he didn't. I don't blame him. If I was him I would have the same opinion of me that he does.

Wendell: [Viewing the desert crime scene] It's a mess, ain't it, Sheriff?
Ed: If it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here.

Sporting: Tent poles?
Llewelyn: Mmm-hmm.
Sporting: You already have a tent?
Llewelyn: Well, somethin' like that.
Sporting: Well, you give me the model number on the tent, I can order you the poles.
Llewelyn: Nah, never mind. I want a tent.
Sporting: Well, what kinda tent?
Llewelyn: The kind with the most poles.

Ed: But I think once you quit hearing "sir" and "ma'am," the rest is soon to foller.

[last lines]
Loretta: How'd you sleep?
Ed: I don't know. Had dreams.
Loretta: Well you got time for 'em now. Anythin' interesting?
Ed: They always is to the party concerned.
Loretta: Ed Tom, I'll be polite.
Ed: Alright then. Two of 'em. Both had my father in 'em. It's peculiar. I'm older now then he ever was by twenty years. So in a sense he's the younger man. Anyway, first one I don't remember too well but it was about meeting him in town somewhere, he's gonna give me some money. I think I lost it. The second one, it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin' through the mountains of a night. Goin' through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin'. Never said nothin' goin' by. He just rode on past... and he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin' fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. 'Bout the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin' on ahead and he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up...

Carla: Llewelyn?
Llewelyn: Yeah?
Carla: What are you doing, baby?
Llewelyn: I'm going out.
Carla: Going where?
Llewelyn: There's something I forgot to do, but I'll be back.
Carla: And what are you going to do?
Llewelyn: I'm fixin' to do something dumber than hell, but I'm going anyways.

Carson: [sitting by bed] Buenos Dias. I'm guessing this isn't the future you had planned for yourself when you first clapped eyes on that money. Don't worry, I'm not the man who's after you.
Llewelyn: [in bed] I know that. I've seen him.
Carson: You've seen him, and you're not dead?
Llewelyn: What's this guy supposed to be, the ultimate badass?
Carson: No, I wouldn't describe him as that.
Llewelyn: How would you describe him?
Carson: I guess I would say he doesn't have a sense of humor. His name is Chigurh.
Llewelyn: Sugar?
Carson: Chigurh, Anton Chigurh. Do you know how he found you?
Llewelyn: Yeah, I know how he found me.
Carson: Called a transponder.
Llewelyn: Yeah, I know what it's called. He won't find me again.
Carson: Not that way.
Llewelyn: Not any way.
Carson: Took me about three hours.
Llewelyn: Yeah, well, I been immobile.
Carson: No, you don't understand.

Ed: Now that's aggravatin'.
Wendell: Sheriff?
Ed: [points to a bottle of milk] Still sweatin'.
Wendell: Whoa, Sheriff! We just missed him! We gotta circulate this! On Radio!
Ed: Alright. What we circulate? Lookin' for a man who has recently drunk milk?

Anton: And you know what's going to happen now. You should admit your situation. There would be more dignity in it.
Carson: You go to hell.
Anton: [Chuckles] Alright. Let me ask you something. If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?
Carson: Do you have any idea how crazy you are?
Anton: You mean the nature of this conversation?
Carson: I mean the nature of you.

Wendell: We goin' in?
Ed: Gun out and up.
Wendell: [Wendell draws his pistol] What about yours?
Ed: I'm hidin' behind you.

Wendell: You know, there might not have been no money.
Ed: That's possible.
Wendell: But you don't believe it.
Ed: No. Probably I don't.
Wendell: It's a mess, ain't it, sheriff?
Ed: If it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here.

Anton: I'm looking for Llewelyn Moss.
Desert: Did you go up to his trailer?
Anton: Yes, I did.
Desert: Well, I'd say he's at work. Do you want to leave a message?
Anton: Where does he work?
Desert: I can't say.
Anton: Where does he work?
Desert: Sir, I ain't at liberty to give out no information about our residents.
Anton: Where does he work?
Desert: Did you not hear me? We can't give out no information.

Carla: It's not often you see a Mexican in a suit.

Ed: Carla Jean, thank you for coming.
Carla: Don't know why I did. I told you, I don't know where he is.
Ed: You hadn't heard from him?
Carla: No, I ain't.
Ed: Nuthin'?
Carla: Not word one.
Ed: Would you tell me if you had?
Carla: Well, I don't know. He don't need any trouble from you.
Ed: It ain't me he's in trouble with.
Carla: Who's he in trouble with then?
Ed: Some pretty bad people. These people will kill him, Carla Jean. They won't quit.
Carla: He won't neither. He never has. He can take all comers.
Ed: [Ed Tom sighs heavily] You know Charlie Walser's, got that place out east of Sanderson? Well, you know how they used to slaughter beeves, hit 'em right there with a maul, truss 'em up and slit their throats? Here, ol' Charlie's got one all trussed up, all set to drain him and the beef comes to, starts thrashing around. Six hundred pounds of very pissed-off livestock. If you'll excuse the... Well... Charlie grabs the gun there, shoot the damn thing in the head, but with all the swingin' and the thrashin', it's a glance-shot, ricochets around, comes back and hits Charlie in the shoulder. You go see Charlie, he still can't pick up his right hand for his hat... The point bein', that even in the contest between man and steer, the issue is not certain.

Ellis: What you got ain't nothin' new. This country's hard on people. You can't stop what's coming. It ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity.

Man: [about Chigurh] Just how dangerous is he?
Carson: Compared to what? The bubonic plague?

Ed: How many of those things you got now?
Ellis: Cats? Several. Well, depends what you mean by got. Some are half-wild and some are just outlaws.

Boot: [Moss walks in wearing his hospital robe] How those Larry's holdin' up?
Llewelyn: Uh, oh, good. Good! I need everything else.
Boot: OK.
Llewelyn: Lotta people come in here without any clothes on?
Boot: No sir, it's unusual.

El: What's it mean? What's it leadin' to? You know, if you'd have told me 20 years ago, that I'd see children walking the streets of our Texas towns with green hair and bones in their noses, I just flat-out wouldn't have believed you.
Ed: Signs and wonders. But I think once you quit hearing "sir" and "ma'am," the rest is soon to foller.
El: Oh, it's the tide. It's the dismal tide.

Llewelyn: If I don't come back, tell mother I love her.
Carla: Your mother's dead, Llewelyn.
Llewelyn: Well then I'll tell her myself.

Carla: I got a bad feeling, Llewelyn.
Llewelyn: Well I got a good feeling, so that should even out.

Carla: And I always seen this is what it would come to. Three years ago I pre-visioned it.
Carla: It ain't even three years we been married.
Carla: Three years ago I said them very words. No and Good.
Cabbie: Yes, ma'am.
Carla: Now here we are. Ninety degree heat. I got the cancer. And look at this. Not even a home to go to.
Cabbie: Yes, ma'am.
Carla: We're goin' to El Paso Texas. You know how many people I know in El Paso, Texas?
Cabbie: No, ma'am.
Carla: [She holds up thumb and forefinger curled to make an O] That's how many. Ninety degree heat.

Anton: Would you hold still, please, sir?

Wendell: You think this boy Moss has got any notion of the sorts of sons of bitches that're huntin' him?
Ed: I don't know, he ought to. He's seen the same things I've seen, and it's certainly made an impression on me.

Anton: What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss?
Gas: Sir?
Anton: The most. You ever lost. On a coin toss.
Gas: I don't know. I couldn't say.
[Chigurh flips a quarter from the change on the counter and covers it with his hand]
Anton: Call it.
Gas: Call it?
Anton: Yes.
Gas: For what?
Anton: Just call it.
Gas: Well, we need to know what we're calling it for here.
Anton: You need to call it. I can't call it for you. It wouldn't be fair.
Gas: I didn't put nothin' up.
Anton: Yes, you did. You've been putting it up your whole life, you just didn't know it. You know what date is on this coin?
Gas: No.
Anton: 1958. It's been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it's here. And it's either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it.
Gas: Look, I need to know what I stand to win.
Anton: Everything.
Gas: How's that?
Anton: You stand to win everything. Call it.
Gas: Alright. Heads then.
[Chigurh removes his hand, revealing the coin is indeed heads]
Anton: Well done.
[the gas station proprietor nervously takes the quarter with the small pile of change he's apparently won while Chigurh starts out]
Anton: Don't put it in your pocket, sir. Don't put it in your pocket. It's your lucky quarter.
Gas: Where do you want me to put it?
Anton: Anywhere not in your pocket. Where it'll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is.
[Chigurh leaves and the gas station proprietor stares at him as he walks out]

Carla: What's in the satchel?
Llewelyn: It's full of money.
Carla: [sarcastically] Yeah, that'll be the day.

Wendell: [referring to the dead bodies in the desert] How come you reckon the coyotes ain't been at them?
Ed: I don't know. Supposedly, a coyote won't eat a Mexican.

Ed: The motel in Del Rio?
Wendell: Yes, sir. None of the three had I.D. on 'em, but they're tellin' me all three is Mexican... was Mexicans.
Ed: There's a question, whether they stopped being and when.
Wendell: Yes, sir.

Carla: Sheriff, was that a true story about Charlie Walser?
Ed: Who's Charlie Walser? Oh! Well... uh... a true story? I couldn't swear to every detail but it's certainly true that it is a story.