Top 50 Quotes From The Magnificent Seven

Harry: No tricks now, Chris.
Chris: Harry! It's good to see you again.
Harry: Chris.
Chris: What are you doing in this dump?
Harry: I heard you've got a contract open.
Chris: Not for a high-stepper like you.
Harry: A dollar bill always looks as big to me as a bedspread.

Calvera: If God didn't want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep.

Vin: You know the first time I took a job as a hired gun, fellow told me, "Vin, you can't afford to care." There's your problem.
Chris: One thing I don't need is somebody telling me my problem.
Vin: Like I said before, that's your problem. You got involved in this village and the people in it.
Chris: Do you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk?
Vin: The reason I understand your problem so well is that I walked in the same trap myself. Yeah. First day we got here, I started thinking: Maybe I could put my gun away, settle down, get a little land, raise some cattle. Things that these people know about me be to my credit - wouldn't work against me. I just didn't want you to think you were the only sucker in town.

Vin: We heard you got that Salinas thing cleaned up in five weeks.
O'Reilly: They paid me $800 for that one.
Vin: And Johnson County in four weeks.
O'Reilly: They paid me $500 for that one.
Vin: You cost a lot.
O'Reilly: [proudly] Yeah, I cost a lot.
Chris: The pay is $20.
[Chris and Vin turn and walk away]
O'Reilly: [Calling after them] $20? Right now, that's a lot.

Calvera: Somehow I don't think you've solved my problem.
Chris: Solving your problems isn't our line.

Chris: You forget one thing. We took a contract.
Vin: It's sure not the kind any court would enforce.
Chris: That's just the kind you've got to keep.

Chris: Nah, leave him alone. It's a free country.
O'Reilly: And it's his.

Vin: We deal in lead, friend.

Lee: Yes. The final supreme idiocy. Coming here to hide. The deserter hiding out in the middle of a battlefield.

[Referring to Britt]
Villager: If he's the best with the gun and the knife, with whom does he compete?
Chris: Himself.

Vin: It took me a long, long time to learn my elbow from a hot rock. Right now, I belong back in that border town sleeping on white sheets.

Hilario: Even if we had the guns, we know how to plant and grow, we don't know how to kill.
Old: Then learn, or die!

[as Chris, Vin and Chico are about to leave the village]
Old: You could a-stay, you know. They wouldn't be sorry to have you a-stay.
Vin: They won't be sorry to see us go, either.
Old: Yes. The fighting is over. Your work is done. For them, each season has its tasks. If there were a season for gratitude, they'd show it more.
Vin: We didn't get any more than we expected, old man.
Old: Only the farmers have won. They remain forever. They are like the land itself. You helped rid them of Calvera, the way a strong wind helps rid them of locusts. You're like the wind - blowing over the land and... passing on. Vaya con dios.
Chris: Adios.

Vin: What're you gonna do when Calvera comes?
Old: At my age, a little excitement is welcome. Don't worry. Why would he kill me? Bullets cost money.

[as the seven are about to leave the village]
Calvera: You'll do much better on the other side of the border. There you can steal cattle, hold up trains... all you have to face is sheriff, marshall. Once I rob a bank in Texas; your government get after me with a whole army... whole army! One little bank. Is clear the meaning: in Texas, only Texans can rob banks. Ha ha.
[they look at him in silence]
Calvera: Adios!

Henry: Well, I'll be damned. I never knew you had to be anything but a corpse to get into Boot Hill. How long's this been going?
Chamlee: Since the town got civilized.

Calvera: [dying - to Chris] You came back - for a place like this. Why? A man like you. Why?

[Chris and the villagers are in the bar]
Sotero: There's one - look at the scars on his face!
Hilario: The man for us is the one who GAVE him that face.
Chris: Hey, you learn fast.

Old: They are all farmers. Farmers talk of nothing but fertilizer and women. I've never shared their enthusiasm for fertilizer. As for women, I became indifferent when I was eighty-three.

[O'Reilly is teaching the villagers how to shoot]
O'Reilly: Miguel, didn't I tell you to squeeze? Hm? Just like when you're milking a goat, Miguel.
Miguel: It's that I get excited!
O'Reilly: Well don't get excited! Now this time squeeze. Slowly, but squeeze. All right now, squeeze.
[Miguel shoots]
O'Reilly: *Squeeze*! I'll tell you what. Don't shoot the gun. Take the gun like this, and you use it like a club, all right?

Hilario: Very young and very proud.
Chris: Well, the graveyards are full of boys who were very young and very proud.

Old: You worry about yourself. Are you ready for him?
[refers to Calvera]
Old: What if he comes now, huh?
Vin: Reminds me of that fellow back home that fell off a ten story building.
Chris: What about him?
Vin: Well, as he was falling people on each floor kept hearing him say, "So far, so good." Tch... So far, so good!

Hilario: The feeling I felt in my chest this morning, when I saw Calvera run away from us, that's a feeling worth dying for. Have you ever felt something like that?
Vin: Not for a long, long time. I envy you.

[Calvera has just captured the Seven]
Calvera: What I don't understand is why a man like you took the job in the first place, hmm? Why, huh?
Chris: I wonder myself.
Calvera: No, come on, come on, tell me why.
Vin: It's like a fellow I once knew in El Paso. One day, he just took all his clothes off and jumped in a mess of cactus. I asked him that same question, "Why?"
Calvera: And?
Vin: He said, "It seemed to be a good idea at the time."

Chris: Bernardo O'Reilly; you've been adopted.
O'Reilly: Yeah, that's my real name. Irish on one side, Mexican on the other... and me in the middle.

Vin: Rojas is makin' room for you in his home.
Old: Rojas? His conversation would bore me to death!
Vin: Yeah, well, maybe somebody else, huh?
Old: Hey are all farmers. Farmers talk of nothing but fertiliser and women. I've never shared their enthusiasm for fertiliser. As for women, I became indifferent when I was 83. I am staying here.

Harry: [Dying words] Well, I'll be damned.
Chris: Maybe you won't be.

Chamlee: I don't like it, no sir. I've always treated every man the same: just as another, future customer.
Henry: Well in that case, get that hearse rolling.
Chamlee: I can't, my driver's quit!
Robert: He's prejudiced too, huh?
Chamlee: Well, when it comes to a chance of getting his head blown off, he's downright bigoted.

Wallace: You tell 'em! I won, didn't I?
Britt: You lost.

[last lines]
Chris: The old man was right. Only the farmers won. We lost. We always lose.

[Britt has just shot a fleeing bandit off his horse]
Chico: Ah, that was the greatest shot I've ever seen.
Britt: The worst! I was aiming at the horse.

Vin: [Chris is driving the hearse up to Boot Hill; Vin is riding shotgun] Never rode shotgun on a hearse before.

Vin: You know - I've been in some towns where the girls weren't all that pretty. In fact I've been in some towns where they're downright ugly. But it's the first time I've been in a town where there are no girls at all, 'cept little ones. You know if we're not careful we could have quite a social life here.

Britt: Nobody throws me my own guns and says run. Nobody.

Village: We're ashamed to live here. Our fathers are... cowards.
[O'Reilly takes the boy over his knee and spanks him]
O'Reilly: [harshly] Don't you ever say that again about your fathers, because they are not cowards! You think I am brave because I carry a gun? Well, your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility, for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers. And this responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. And there's nobody says they have to do this. They do it because they love you, and because they want to. I have never had this kind of courage. Running a farm, working like a mule every day with no guarantee anything will ever come of it. This is bravery. That's why I never even started anything like that... that's why I never will.

Vin: Twenty dollars? You must be living in style.
Lee: Yes... I have the most stylish corner of the filthy storeroom out back. That and one plate of beans. Ten dollars a day.

Calvera: I should have guessed. When my men didn't come back I should have guessed. How many of you did they hire?
Chris: Enough!

Chamlee: I'm sorry, friend, but there'll be no funeral.
Henry: What?
Chamlee: Oh, the grave is dug and the defunct there is as ready as the embalmers ought to make him. But there'll be no funeral.
Henry: What's the matter? Didn't I pay enough?
Chamlee: It's not a question of money. For twenty dollars, I'd plant anybody with a hoop and a holler. But the funeral is off.
Henry: Now how do you like that. I want him buried, you want him buried and if he could sit up and talk, he'd second the motion. Now that's as unanimous as you can get.

[the village Calvera's raiding has changed]
Calvera: New wall.
Chris: There are lots of new walls, all around.
Calvera: They won't keep me out!
Chris: They were built to keep you in.

Chico: Villages like this they make up a song about every big thing that happens. Sing them for years.
Chris: You think it's worth it?
Chico: Don't you?
Chris: It's only a matter of knowing how to shoot a gun. Nothing big about that.
Chico: Hey. How can you talk like this? Your gun has got you everything you have. Isn't that true? Hmm? Well, isn't that true?
Vin: Yeah, sure. Everything. After awhile you can call bartenders and faro dealers by their first name - maybe two hundred of 'em! Rented rooms you live in - five hundred! Meals you eat in hash houses - a thousand! Home - none! Wife - none! Kids... none! Prospects - zero. Suppose I left anything out?
Chris: Yeah. Places you're tied down to - none. People with a hold on you - none. Men you step aside for - none.
Lee: Insults swallowed - none. Enemies - none.
Chris: No enemies?
Lee: Alive.
Chico: Well. This is the kind of arithmetic I like.
Chris: Yeah. So did I at your age.

Lee: [Grabs at three flies - opens his hand] One. There was a time when I'd have gotten all three.

Chico: They're afraid. She's afraid of me, you, him. All of us. Farmers! Their families told them we would rape them.
Chris: Well, we might. But in my opinion you might have given us the benefit of the doubt. But just as you please...

Calvera: Last month we were in San Juan. Rich town. Sit down. Rich town, much blessed by God. Big church. Not like here - little church, priest comes twice a year. BIG one. You'd think we'd find gold candlesticks. Poor box filled to overflowing. Do you know what we found? Brass candlesticks. Almost nothing in the poor box.
Sidekick: But we took it anyway.
Calvera: I KNOW we took it anyway. I'm trying to show him how little religion some people now have.

Chris: Morning. I'm a friend of Harry Luck's. He tells me you're broke.
O'Reilly: [chopping wood] Nah. I'm doing this because I'm an eccentric millionaire.

Calvera: Generosity... that was my first mistake. I leave these people a little bit extra, and then they hire these men to make trouble. It shows you, sooner or later, you must answer for every good deed.

[Chris and Vin were just shot at, hitting the tip of Chris' cigar]
Vin: You elected?
Chris: Na. I got nominated real good.

[Chris is driving the hearse up to Boot Hill; Vin is riding shotgun]
Chris: We'll get there.
Vin: It's not getting up there that bothers me. It's staying up there that I mind.

Village: If you get killed, we take the rifle and avenge you.
Village: And we see to it there's always fresh flowers on your grave.
O'Reilly: That's a mighty big comfort.
Village: I told you he'll appreciate that!
O'Reilly: Well, now don't you kids be too disappointed if your plans don't work out.
Village: We won't. If you stay alive, we'll be just as happy.
Village: Maybe even happier.
Village: Maybe.

Hilario: We must buy guns. We know nothing about them. Will you buy guns for us?
Chris: Guns are very expensive and hard to get.
[pause]
Chris: Why don't you hire men?
Hilario: Men?
Chris: Gunmen. Nowadays men are cheaper than guns.
Hilario: Would you go?
Tomas: It would be a blessing if you came to help us!
Chris: [shaking his head] Sorry, I'm not in the blessing business.
Hilario: No no, we offer more than that! We could feed you every day!
Tomas: [taking out a sack] And we have this!
Chris: What is that?
Tomas: We can sell this for gold! Everything we own, everything of value in the village.
Chris: Well, I've been offered a lot for my work... but never everything.

Calvera: Now, to business! I could kill you all. You agree?
[Dead silence]
Calvera: Well, you don't disagree!