First Driver: Officer, can you tell me the way to Three Rivers?
Sheriff Tod Shaw, Suddenly California: About two miles to the first main intersection, then turn left. It's about sixty miles.
First Driver: Thanks, what town is this?
Sheriff Tod Shaw, Suddenly California: Suddenly.
First Driver: Suddenly what?
Sheriff Tod Shaw, Suddenly California: No no, that's the name.
First Driver: [laughs] That's a funny name for a town.
Sheriff Tod Shaw, Suddenly California: Uh huh, hangover from the old days; that's the way things used to happen here, suddenly.
First Driver: I see.
Sheriff Tod Shaw, Suddenly California: Road agents, gamblers, gunfighters.
First Driver: Well, I take it things have changed.
Sheriff Tod Shaw, Suddenly California: Uh huh. Things happen so slow now, the town council is figuring to change the name to Gradually.
First Driver: [laughs] Thanks, officer.
Sheriff Tod Shaw, Suddenly California: Pleasure, come back.


--Sterling Hayden (as ) in Suddenly

Smokestack: It looks like we're already in the war everybody keeps talking about.
Capt. John Nelson: No, this is worse than war. In a war, at least you know who you're fighting.


--Sterling Hayden (as Capt. John Nelson) in Kansas Pacific

Cleo: I came to see you, Mr. York.
Jay Turner: I don't know why. All I wanted was a room and a bath.
Cleo: Mr. York, the management only sent you the key.
Jay Turner: Oh. Thank you.
Cleo: You're not very nice.
Jay Turner: Look, miss, I'm just a little old country boy, but I can tell that, whoever you are, you're not the room clerk.


--Sterling Hayden (as ) in Gun Battle at Monterey

Jim Vesser: We've been surveying this route for three weeks!
McCabe: And so have we.
Bob Nelson: Don't get hot-headed Jim. Looks like it's for the courts to decide.
Jim Vesser: There's nothing in my orders that says I have to wait for any courts to make up their minds. We're going through.
Bob Nelson: Not along our stakes.
Jim Vesser: We'll throw them in the river.
McCabe: You throw one stake in the river and I'll throw you in right after it.


--Sterling Hayden (as ) in Denver and Rio Grande

Bart Laish: It's clearly common knowledge out here that most Indians do not like to fight at night. An Indian killed at night, they believe, wanders forever in darkness.


--Sterling Hayden (as ) in Arrow in the Dust

Det. Lt. Sims: You know, it isn't what a man wants to do, Lacey, but what he has to do. Now take me - I love to smoke cigarettes, but the doctors say I can't have them. So what do I do? I chew toothpicks, tons of them.


--Sterling Hayden (as ) in Crime Wave

Jay Turner: Lady, where I come from they have an old saying, "It's not polite to ask a man his business unless you want to die."
Cleo: From the looks of those scars your manners must stink.
Jay Turner: Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is bad manners to turn your back on a man.


--Sterling Hayden (as ) in Gun Battle at Monterey

Johnny Clay: A friend of mine will be stopping by tomorrow to drop something off for me. He's a cop.
Joe: A cop? That's a funny kind of a friend.
Johnny Clay: Well, he's a funny kind of a cop.


--Sterling Hayden (as Johnny Clay) in The Killing

Johnny Clay: You like money. You've got a great big dollar sign there where most women have a heart.


--Sterling Hayden (as Johnny Clay) in The Killing

Johnny Clay: You'd be killing a horse - that's not first degree murder, in fact it's not murder at all, in fact I don't know what it is.


--Sterling Hayden (as Johnny Clay) in The Killing