HONKYTONK MAN
BEST EASTWOOD QUOTES FROM
HONKYTONK MAN
VIRGIL: I thought you said you didn't have any money.
RED: Are you kidding? I got money ten miles up a bull's ass. Course, I gotta find that bull to get it.
JIM BOB: I seen enough chicken shit in my life to know when I see it.
RED: When was the last time you saw chicken shit, Jim Bob? When you were shaving this morning?
RED: It's a sad state when a man can't buy a woman for his own boy.
ARNSPRINGER: I'm disappointed in you, Red, questioning my honesty like this. Is that what you're doing? Calling me a liar and a cheat?
RED: I'm calling you a liar and a cheat and a fat, porky son-of-a-bitch. Now you wanna hear any more, I've got other things I can think up for you.
RED: I don't think I want to spend two days in this town. Rather be in Philadelphia.
WHIT: Uncle Red, don't you think you have a problem with your drinking?
RED: Only when I can't get it.
WHIT: I mean, don't you think you might need some help with your drinking?
RED: No, I do quite well all by myself.
WHIT: Aren't there doctors that...
RED: Look, Hoss... if you want to be my sidekick and chauffeur, that's fine. But if I want a nursemaid and a wife to bitch at me, I'll go out and get one.
WHIT: Uncle Red, was there ever anyone you wanted to marry?
RED: Marry? Yeah I guess there was, a few years back.
WHIT: Who was she?
RED: A girl I knew out in California. Mary Simms was the name.
WHIT: Well, why didn't you? Marry her, I mean.
RED: She was married already. A farmer married her when she was fourteen years old and she had two kids. Wasn't much to look at really. Just a rawboned Okie girl. But she was a fine, decent, faithful woman. Least till I met her.
WHIT: Well, what happened?
RED: She ran off with me. I told her I loved her just to get to her. I knew it was a lie, I thought she figured it was a lie too, but she took me serious. She told me she loved me too... and she meant it. Well, we bummed around the country, broke most of the time. Even worked the fruit harvest for a while there. Lived in some flophouses and migrant labor shacks. It was all right. No, it was more than all right. I was happier than I think I've ever been before in my life, either before or since.
WHIT: Well, what happened?
RED: Oh, I got tired of it, I guess. I started wondering what I was doing with this rawboned Okie girl. I started thinking about all the women that were hanging around in the bars that I worked in. I told her I thought we made a mistake. I told her to get a place of her own. I gave her all the money I had so she could get one. She threw the money in my face. Said she didn't want any part of me or my money. Took off and went back to her husband.
WHIT: And you? What'd you do?
RED: I got drunk and started feeling sorry for myself, as usual. And... I got to thinking what a no-good bastard I was; what a decent girl Mary was. I got to thinking maybe I loved her all along. Maybe I loved her all this time and just never realized it until ... I lost her.
WHIT: Didn't you try to find her?
RED: Yeah. I heard she was pregnant before she left me and so I went on down to Brawley where she was from and I tried to see her. But before I could see her, I ran into her husband and his brother... he was a big guy. And they beat me up pretty bad at the parking lot. Husband said Mary didn't want to see me no more, if I ever tried to see her again, he'd break my fingers and I'd never play the guitar again. So I left town.
WHIT: Did she have her baby?
RED: Yeah, I heard she did. A little girl.
WHIT: And you never tried to see her? The little girl?
RED: No. No, she's better off not knowing about me. Mary was right to go back to her husband. What the hell did I have to offer a kid? Just honkytonks and flophouses. That's the life of a country singer, Hoss. Sound good to you?
WHIT: It don't sound too hot when you put it like that, but it sure beats picking cotton and living in a sharecropper's shack.
RED: Maybe you're right, boy. Maybe you're right. Maybe if I get this break on the Opry we won't have to stay in any flophouses or sharecropper's shacks ever again.
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