Trouble Along the Way (1953)

John Wayne: Steve Williams

Photos 

Quotes 

• Steve Williams : What do you know about love? I think love is watching your child go off to school for the first time alone... sitting beside a sick kid's bed waiting for the doctor, praying it isn't polio... or that cold chill you get when you hear the screech of brakes, and know your kid's outside on the street some place... and a lot of other things you get can't get out of books, 'cause nobody knows how to write 'em down.

• Steve Williams : Couldn't he have booked one Protestant school along the way... for a breather?

• Steve Williams : You just gotta quit looking at me like I was George Washington, Babe Ruth and Florence Nightingale all rolled into one.

• Steve Williams : [talking football]  What system do you use?

  Father Malone : 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.' But, usually, the others do it to us first.

• Steve Williams : How'd you do last season?

  Father Malone : We showed up for every game.

  Steve Williams : I'd say that was raw courage.

• Steve Williams : Care for a cigarette?

  Alice Singleton : No, thank you.

  Steve Williams : It's the kind all the doctors smoke.

• Steve Williams : Well, the trouble with us, Father, is I'm a sensitive man and you're a gambler.

• Mike Edwards : [Mike won't offer Steve or Father Burke any financial credit for purchasing football equipment]  It's no dice, Steve. We don't give credit to busted schools. Those boys of yours will have to play in their underwear.

  Steve Williams : Michael, my own, I wouldn't do that if I were you.

  Mike Edwards : Why not?

  Steve Williams : When I was buying a hundred grand worth of equipment a season, I was a pretty big man around here. Got ten percent off. Of course I had to kick five percent back to somebody in this outfit. And I'm sure the boss doesn't know about this. I wonder if it's cricket to keep him in the dark?

  Mike Edwards : [promptly goes back out to address Father Burke]  Father, will Saturday be soon enough for the delivery?

• [last lines] 

  Steve Williams : Welcome to the ranks of the unemployed, Father.

  Father Burke : Only one of us. You'll be back here again next season.

  Steve Williams : Me?

  Father Burke : Yes. Read the fine print in your contract. It says: "If desired by the College, this agreement may be extended for twelve months."

  Steve Williams : I never saw that.

  Father Burke : It's in Latin.

  Father Burke : [the bell of the chapel clock tower strikes four. One clock face says 4:10, the other says 3:50; Father Burke looks at his watch]  Right on the dot.

  [on one of the clock faces, the minute hand slips and falls straight down to the half-hour position] 

• Steve Williams : Oh, it's a fine game, football - noble game. Originated in England in 1823. An enterprising young man named William Weber Ellis - who studied for the ministry, by the way - found his team behind in a soccer game, so he picked up the ball, and ran through the amazed opponents for a thoroughly illegal touchdown. And that's how football was born - illegitimately. So, it moved to America where someone took advantage of a loophole in the rules, and invented a little formation called the Flying Wedge. So many young men were maimed and killed by this clever maneuver that President Roosevelt - Theodore Roosevelt - had to call the colleges together and ask them to make the game less brutal. He was, of course, defeated in the next election. In spite of this setback, football became an industry. The price of a good running back often surpassed the salary of a professor. And when some righteous committee unearthed this well-known fact, there was always a coach that took it on the chin. I just got tired of picking myself up.

• Steve Williams : [the academic abilities of his newly recruited players has come into question]  Why is it that the minute a boy with a fine physique enters college, his intellect is immediately suspect?

• Carol Williams : Steve, why don't we go to a ballgame?

  Steve Williams : When did you burn down the school?

  Carol Williams : OK. But I'm only doing this for you.

  Steve Williams : Thanks, pal.

• Steve Williams : I hope you can sleep without those bells.

  Carol Williams : I can always bang my head against the wall.

• Steve Williams : [presenting a gift box]  I got something for you.

  Carol Williams : What's in this?

  Steve Williams : A time bomb - what else? Open it, and blow us all up.

• Judge : Why are you not represented by counsel?

  Steve Williams : I saw a lot of them where I spent the night, but they wouldn't let any of them out.