- [Lewis and Ed take a wrong turn looking for the river]
- First Griner: Where you goin' city boy?
- Lewis: We'll find it. We'll find it.
- Second Griner: It ain't nothin' but the biggest fuckin' river in the state.
- Sherrif Bullard: Don't ever do nothin' like this again. Don't come back up here.
- Bobby: You don't have to worry about that, Sheriff.
- Ed: Look, what is it that you require of us?
- Mountain Man: What we, uh, "re-quire" is that you get your god-damn asses up in them woods.
- Lewis: Do know what's gonna be here? Right here? A lake. As far as the eyes can see. Hundreds of feet deep. HUNDREDS of feet deep. Did you ever look out over a lake and think of somethin' buried underneath it? Buried underneath it. Well man, that's just about as buried as you can get.
- Lewis: Now you listen, Ed. Damn it, we can get out of this thing, without any questions asked. We get connected up with that body, and the law, this thing's gonna be hangin' over us the rest of our lives. We've gotta get rid of that guy.
- Drew: Just how're you gonna do that, Lewis? Where?
- Lewis: Anywhere. Everywhere. Nowhere.
- [Lewis and Drew are arguing about whether to bury the dead mountain man]
- Drew: It is a matter of the law!
- Lewis: The law! Ha! The law! What law? WHERE'S THE LAW, DREW? HUH?
- [sarcastically]
- Lewis: You believe in democracy, don't you?
- Drew: Yes, I do.
- Lewis: Well, then we'll take a vote. And I'll stand by it. And SO WILL YOU.
- [points menacingly at Drew]
- Mountain Man: I bet you can squeal like a pig. Weeeeeeee!
- Bobby: Weee!
- Mountain Man: Weeeeeeee!
- Bobby: Weee!
- Mountain Man: What do you want to do now?
- Toothless Man: [grinning] He got a real pretty mouth ain't he?
- Mountain Man: That's the truth
- Toothless Man: [to Ed] You gonna do some prayin' for me, boy. And you better pray good.
- Lewis: Why do you go on these trips with me, Ed?
- Ed: [somewhat defensively] I like my life, Lewis.
- Lewis: Yeah, but why do you go on these trips with me?
- Ed: You know, sometimes I wonder about that.
- Ed: [Lewis accurately shoots a fish in the river with an arrow; Ed raises his beer can in salute] Here's to you, Lewis.
- Taxi Driver: Right there's the town hall. Right over there's the old fire station. Played a lot of checkers over there, sure did. All this land's gonna be covered with water - best thing ever happened to this town.
- [a truck in front of the cab is carrying a small church building on a flatbed trailer]
- Taxi Driver: We might have to wait a minute for the church to get out the way.
- Ed: No matter what disasters may occur in other parts of the world... or whatever petty little problems arise in Atlanta... no one can find us up here. Good night, Lewis.
- Lewis: Your name Griner?
- First Griner: What you wanna know for?
- Lewis: Can you and your brother drive two cars down to Aintry for us?
- First Griner: Drive 'em down there for what?
- Lewis: Me and my buddy here are taking a canoe trip down the Cahulawassee. We'd like our cars to be down in Aintry when we get there. Be there about Sunday noon.
- First Griner: [sarcastically] Canoe trip?
- Lewis: That's right, a canoe trip.
- First Griner: What the hell you wanna go fuck around with that river for?
- Lewis: Because it's there.
- First Griner: It's there all right. You get in there and can't get out, you gonna wish it wasn't.
- Ed: [to Lewis, whispering] Look, Lewis, let's go back to town and, ah... play golf.
- Lewis: [ignoring Ed] I'll give you thirty dollars to take those cars down to Aintry.
- First Griner: I'll take fifty.
- Lewis: Fifty, my ass.
- Ed: Lewis, don't play games with these people!
- First Griner: Whud you say?
- Lewis: I said "fifty, my ass."
- Ed: [whispering urgently] Lewis!
- First Griner: I'll do it for forty.
- Lewis: Mm-hmm...
- [to Ed]
- Lewis: You good for ten?
- Ed: Sure.
- Mountain Man: Now let's you just drop them pants.
- Bobby: Drop?
- Mountain Man: Take 'em right off.
- Bobby: I... I mean, what's this all about?
- Toothless Man: Don't say nothin' just do it.
- Mountain Man: Just drop 'em, boy!
- Bobby: [indicating a junk car by a rural gas station] That's my '51 Dodge. No, that's my car! That's my car! Whooee! All my youth and passion... spent in that back seat. It's all gone, you see? It's all gone - rust and dust.
- Bobby: [Old lady is describing a cucumber she'd grown and asks the other guests to guess how big it was] Tell me, how big?
- Old lady at Biddiford's: Twelve and a half inches long. And I measured it around and it was ten and a half around. That was the darnedest lookin' cucumber you ever did see!
- [first lines]
- Lewis: You w- you wanna... you wanna talk about the vanishing wilderness?
- Bobby: Lewis, listen - what are you so anxious about this?
- Lewis: Because they're buildin' a dam across the Cahulawassee River; they're gonna flood a whole valley, Bobby, that's why. Dammit, they're drownin' a river; they're drownin' a river, man.
- Lewis: This is the one! There she is.
- [Lewis pushes aside tree branches and we see the river for the first time]
- Ed: Looks good. Looks good.
- Lewis: [mournfully] Couple more months, and she'll all be gone.
- Bobby: [offscreen] Ed! Lewis!
- Ed: Even up as far as here?
- Lewis: From Aintry on up. One big, dead lake.
- Lewis: [to Bobby, angrily] OVER HERE!
- Drew: I'm a-goin' with you, Ed, and not with Mister Lewis Medlock, 'cause I done seen how he drives these country roads he don't know nothin' 'bout.
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