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

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.

If you think it's going to rain, it will.

Set religion free, and a new humanity will begin.

Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances.

It will take a long time, and certainly the West will remain the dominant civilization well into the next century, but the decline is occurring.

Given a fair wind, we will negotiate our way into the Common Market, head held high, not crawling in. Negotiations? Yes. Unconditional acceptance of whatever terms are offered us? No.

I think I've become a much better singer and a much better player. Years and years of playing a couple of hours every day will do that.

To hard necessity ones will and fancy must conform.

Almost everyone will find something in our services worth paying for.

I frankly don't care if you agree with my stand on abortion. I take that stand because no other stand is consistent with decent principles, and no other standard is consistent with the will of God.

Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better.

Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will-whatever we may think.