- Oakes Ames: How is it you decided to defend the bridge, and not the town?
- Cullen Bohannan: I learned in the war to protect strategic assets.
- Oakes Ames: The town?
- Cullen Bohannan: The town ain't nothin' but wood and canvas - replaceable.
- Oakes Ames: And its inhabitants?
- Cullen Bohannan: Replaceable.
- The Swede: In your own myopic single-mindedness,
- [chuckling]
- The Swede: I was surprised that you made it so easy to take her from you. Thank you. It was inexplicably pleasurable.
- Cullen Bohannan: Not as much as it'll be to see you swing, you evil son of a bitch.
- The Swede: Regrettably not, Mr. Bohannan. For you and I are now consummated. Are we not?
- [last lines]
- Oakes Ames: Mr. Bohannan, it's going to take some time to sort this all out. Meanwhile, the President of the United States has ordered the construction of the railroad to continue. Would you entertain in assuming Mr. Durant's role in leading us westward. Mr. Bohannan, will you finish this road?
- Lily Bell: You're here to kill me...
- Elam Ferguson: Mr. Durant promised me my land, and my house down by the river.
- Lily Bell: My life is worth only a few acres of river bottom.
- Elam Ferguson: It's a nice spot.
- Lily Bell: I have borne every privation for this railroad. I lost my husband, killed another human being, suffered humiliation at the hands of your wife, I've even endured your bed.
- Thomas 'Doc' Durant: That, Lily, makes you a whore.
- Lily Bell: Know then that when your precious railroad is ripped from your thick and grasping fingers, that you've been undone by a whore.
- Thomas 'Doc' Durant: What am I going to do!
- The Swede: Your suffering, that is good. Suffering builds character.