Sergeant: Where did ya learn to shoot York?
Alvin: Well I ain't never *learned* Sergeant! Folks back home used to say I could shoot a rifle before I was *weaned*, but they was exaggeratin' some.


--Gary Cooper (as Alvin C. York) in Sergeant York

Pastor Rosier Pile: War's way to the other side of the ocean, Alvin. Lots of things can happen before you get there. You put your trust in the Lord, and He'll look out for you.
Alvin: I done forgot the Lord! I ain't never gonna forget him again!


--Gary Cooper (as Alvin C. York) in Sergeant York

Alvin: I ain't a-goin' to war. War's killin', and the book's agin' killin! So war is agin' the book!


--Gary Cooper (as Alvin C. York) in Sergeant York

Alvin: Therefore, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.


--Gary Cooper (as Alvin C. York) in Sergeant York

Howard Roark: [delivering the closing statements of his own defense] Thousands of years ago the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light, but he left them a gift they had not conceived of, and he lifted darkness off the earth. Through out the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision. The great creators, the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors, stood alone against the men of their time. Every new thought was opposed. Every new invention was denounced. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered, and they paid - but they won.


--Gary Cooper (as Howard Roark) in The Fountainhead

Howard Roark: A building has integrity, just as a man and just as seldom! It must be true to its own idea, have its own form, and serve its own purpose!


--Gary Cooper (as Howard Roark) in The Fountainhead

Howard Roark: Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the people! Your own work, not any possible object of your charity. I'll be glad if men who need it find a better method of living in the house I built, but that's not the motive of my work, nor my reason, nor my reward! My reward, my purpose, my life, is the work itself - my work done my way! Nothing else matters to me!


--Gary Cooper (as Howard Roark) in The Fountainhead

Howard Roark: I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build!


--Gary Cooper (as Howard Roark) in The Fountainhead

Howard Roark: I don't give or ask for help!


--Gary Cooper (as Howard Roark) in The Fountainhead

Longfellow Deeds: [to the Court] From what I can see, no matter what system of government we have, there will always be leaders and always be followers. It's like the road out in front of my house. It's on a steep hill. Every day I watch the cars climbing up. Some go lickety-split up that hill on high, some have to shift into second, and some sputter and shake and slip back to the bottom again. Same cars, same gasoline, yet some make it and some don't. And I say the fellas who can make the hill on high should stop once in a while and help those who can't. That's all I'm trying to do with this money. Help the fellas who can't make the hill on high.


--Gary Cooper (as Longfellow Deeds) in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town