If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'

Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway.

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.

If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'

Get off your horse and drink your milk.

Tomorrow hopes we have learned something from yesterday.

I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

Talk low, talk slow and don't say too much.

Life is hard; it's harder if you're stupid.

If you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.

Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid.

Get off your butt and join the Marines!

All I'm for is the liberty of the individual.

All the screen cowboys behaved like real gentlemen. They didn't drink, they didn't smoke. When they knocked the bad guy down, they always stood with their fists up, waiting for the heavy to get back on his feet. I decided I was going to drag the bad guy to his feet and keep hitting him.

Everybody that I was in school with had an uncle or father in the law, and I started to realize that I was going to end up writing briefs for about ten years for these fellows who I thought I was smarter than. And I was kind of losing my feeling for that.

I never have really become accustomed to the 'John.' Nobody ever really calls me John... I've always been Duke or Marion or John Wayne. It's a name that goes well together, and it's like one word - John Wayne.

I suppose my best attribute, if you want to call it that, is sincerity. I can sell sincerity because that's the way I am.

I was ashamed to admit I was hipped to the idea of acting. That's why I started in with the props.

I was sure I'd set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the truth - that I hadn't set the world on fire, and I was totally unprepared to handle the consequences if 'The Big Trail' had been a success and launched me as a star.

I'd read up on the history of our country and I'd become fascinated with the story of the Alamo. To me it represented the fight for freedom, not just in America, but in all countries.

I'm not the sort to back away from a fight. I don't believe in shrinking from anything. It's not my speed; I'm a guy who meets adversities head on.

I've loved reading all my life.

In westerns, you meet a hardy bunch of characters. There is no jealousy on such pictures.

Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid.

My folks always let me go to the movies every Saturday. We were really motion-picture goers.

Nobody should come to the movies unless he believes in heroes.

Nothing is so discouraging to an actor than to have to work for long hours upon hours in brightly lighted interior sets.

Real art is basic emotion. If a scene is handled with simplicity - and I don't mean simple - it'll be good, and the public will know it.

When I was a sophomore at USC, I was a socialist, pretty much to the left. But not when I left the university. I quickly got wise. I'd read about what had happened to Russia in 1917 when the Communists took over.

When you come to see a picture of mine, I want you to know that I'm not going to do anything that will make you uncomfortable. I want you to know that you won't be disappointed in me.

Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway.

Never apologize and never explain-it's a sign of weakness.

You have to be a man before you can be a gentleman.

True Grit is making a decision and standing by it doing what must be done. No moral man can have peace of mind if he leaves undone what he knows he should have done.

Life is tough, but if you are stupid, it's a lot tougher.

Life is tough pilgrim, it is even tougher if you're stupid.

A man deserves a second chance, but keep an eye on him.

Hell, if I'd jumped on all the dames I'm supposed to have jumped on, I'd have had no time to go fishing.

What the hell difference does it make, left or right? There were good men lost on both sides.

A worker's paradise is a consumer's hell.

There's an inherent thing in me where, if things are going too smooth, I'll sabotage the hell out of them, just to make the music more of a sanctuary.

The Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock?

I just had one of those "what the hell are we doing" moments.

Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.

Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell.

Looking back, I think we were all quite mature, surprisingly responsible. In earlier wars, boys of our age had just gone off to raise hell or enlist or both, but we stayed dutifully at our desks doing tomorrow's homework.

As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which we cannot escape.

It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.

Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned.