Howard: Aah, gold's a devilish sort of thing, anyway. You start out, you tell yourself you'll be satisfied with 25,000 handsome smackers worth of it. So help me, Lord, and cross my heart. Fine resolution. After months of sweatin' yourself dizzy, and growin' short on provisions, and findin' nothin', you finally come down to 15,000, then ten. Finally, you say, "Lord, let me just find $5,000 worth and I'll never ask for anythin' more the rest of my life."
Flophouse Bum: $5,000 is a lot of money.
Howard: Yeah, here in this joint it seems like a lot. But I tell you, if you was to make a real strike, you couldn't be dragged away. Not even the threat of miserable death would keep you from trying to add 10,000 more. Ten, you'd want to get twenty-five; twenty-five you'd want to get fifty; fifty, a hundred. Like roulette. One more turn, you know. Always one more.


--Walter Huston (as Howard) in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Howard: Ah, as long as there's no find, the noble brotherhood will last but when the piles of gold begin to grow... that's when the trouble starts.


--Walter Huston (as Howard) in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Howard: I know what gold does to men's souls.


--Walter Huston (as Howard) in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Howard: If I were you boys, I wouldn't talk or even think about women. T'aint good for your health.


--Walter Huston (as Howard) in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Howard: Now here's where we're bound for, hereabouts. Don't show properly whether there's mountains, swamp, or desert. That shows the makers of the map themselves don't know for sure. Once on the ground, all we gotta do is open our eyes and look around. Yes, and blow our noses, too. Believe it or not, I knew a fellow once who could smell gold like a jackass can smell water.


--Walter Huston (as Howard) in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Howard: Say, answer me this one, will you? Why is gold worth some twenty bucks an ounce?
Flophouse Bum: I don't know. Because it's scarce.
Howard: A thousand men, say, go searchin' for gold. After six months, one of them's lucky: one out of a thousand. His find represents not only his own labor, but that of nine hundred and ninety-nine others to boot. That's six thousand months, five hundred years, scramblin' over a mountain, goin' hungry and thirsty. An ounce of gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that went into the findin' and the gettin' of it.
Flophouse Bum: I never thought of it just like that.
Howard: Well, there's no other explanation, mister. Gold itself ain't good for nothing except making jewelry with and gold teeth.


--Walter Huston (as Howard) in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Howard: Water's precious. Sometimes may be more precious than gold.


--Walter Huston (as Howard) in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Howard: Without me, you two would die here, more miserable than rats.


--Walter Huston (as Howard) in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Ling Tan's Wife: [referring to a Japanese officer] Why do you not defy him?
Ling Tan: Alive I can hold my land. Dead I can only hold as much as I am buried in.


--Walter Huston (as Ling Tan) in Dragon Seed

Ling Tan: [referring to Jade's son] He has his eyes open. Make sure the one who teaches him has his eyes open.


--Walter Huston (as Ling Tan) in Dragon Seed