No Country for Old Men Quotes

Anton Chigurh: What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss?
Gas Station Proprietor: Sir?
Anton Chigurh: The most. You ever lost. On a coin toss.
Gas Station Proprietor: I don't know. I couldn't say.
[Chigurh flips a quarter from the change on the counter and covers it with his hand]

Anton Chigurh: Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Call it?
Anton Chigurh: Yes.
Gas Station Proprietor: For what?
Anton Chigurh: Just call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Well, we need to know what we're calling it for here.
Anton Chigurh: You

need to call it. I can't call it for you. It wouldn't be fair.
Gas Station Proprietor: I didn't put nothin' up.
Anton Chigurh: Yes, you did. You've been putting it up your whole life, you just didn't know it. You know what date is on this coin?
Gas Station Proprietor: No.
Anton Chigurh: 1958. It's been

traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it's here. And it's either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Look, I need to know what I stand to win.
Anton Chigurh: Everything.
Gas Station Proprietor: How's that?
Anton Chigurh: You stand to win everything. Call it.

Gas Station Proprietor: Alright. Heads then.
[Chigurh removes his hand, revealing the coin is indeed heads]
Anton Chigurh: Well done.
[the gas station proprietor nervously takes the quarter with the small pile of change he's apparently won while Chigurh starts out]
Anton Chigurh: Don't put it in your pocket, sir.

Don't put it in your pocket. It's your lucky quarter.
Gas Station Proprietor: Where do you want me to put it?
Anton Chigurh: Anywhere not in your pocket. Where it'll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is.
[Chigurh leaves and the gas station proprietor stares at him as he walks out]

[last lines]
Loretta Bell: How'd you sleep?
Ed Tom Bell: I don't know. Had dreams.
Loretta Bell: Well you got time for 'em now. Anythin' interesting?
Ed Tom Bell: They always is to the party concerned.
Loretta Bell: Ed Tom, I'll be polite.
Ed Tom Bell:

Alright then. Two of 'em. Both had my father in 'em. It's peculiar. I'm older now then he ever was by twenty years. So in a sense he's the younger man. Anyway, first one I don't remember too well but it was about meeting him in town somewhere, he's gonna give me some money. I think I lost it. The second one, it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin' through the

mountains of a night. Goin' through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin'. Never said nothin' goin' by. He just rode on past... and he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin' fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it.

'Bout the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin' on ahead and he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up...

Carla Jean Moss: You don't have to do this.
Anton Chigurh: [smiles] People always say the same thing.
Carla Jean Moss: What do they say?
Anton Chigurh: They say, "You don't have to do this."
Carla Jean Moss: You don't.
Anton Chigurh: Okay.
[Chigurh flips a

coin and covers it with his hand]
Anton Chigurh: This is the best I can do. Call it.
Carla Jean Moss: I knowed you was crazy when I saw you sitting there. I knowed exactly what was in store for me.
Anton Chigurh: Call it.
Carla Jean Moss: No. I ain't gonna call it.
Anton Chigurh:

Call it.
Carla Jean Moss: The coin don't have no say. It's just you.
Anton Chigurh: Well, I got here the same way the coin did.

[first lines]
Ed Tom Bell: I was sheriff of this county when I was twenty-five years old. Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman; father too. Me and him was sheriffs at the same time; him up in Plano and me out here. I think he's pretty proud of that. I know I was. Some of the old time sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lotta folks find that hard to believe. Jim

Scarborough'd never carried one; that's the younger Jim. Gaston Boykins wouldn't wear one up in Comanche County. I always liked to hear about the oldtimers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can't help but compare yourself against the oldtimers. Can't help but wonder how they would have operated these times. There was this boy I sent to the 'lectric chair at Huntsville Hill here a while back. My

arrest and my testimony. He killt a fourteen-year-old girl. Papers said it was a crime of passion but he told me there wasn't any passion to it. Told me that he'd been planning to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he'd do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell. "Be there in about fifteen minutes". I don't know what to make of that. I sure

don't. The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, "O.K., I'll be part of this world."

Anton Chigurh: [indicating bag of cashews] How much?
Gas Station Proprietor: Sixty-nine cent.
Anton Chigurh: This. And the gas.
Gas Station Proprietor: Y'all gettin' any rain up your way?
Anton Chigurh: What way would that be?
Gas Station Proprietor: I seen you

was from Dallas.
Anton Chigurh: What business is it of yours where I'm from, friendo?
Gas Station Proprietor: I didn't mean nothin' by it.
Anton Chigurh: Didn't mean nothin'.
Gas Station Proprietor: I was just passin' the time. If you don't wanna accept that I don't know what else to do for you. Will

there be something else?
Anton Chigurh: I don't know. Will there?
Gas Station Proprietor: Is somethin' wrong?
Anton Chigurh: With what?
Gas Station Proprietor: With anything?
Anton Chigurh: Is that what you're asking me? Is there something wrong with anything?
Gas

Station Proprietor: Will there be anything else?
Anton Chigurh: You already asked me that.
Gas Station Proprietor: Well... I need to see about closin'.
Anton Chigurh: See about closing.
Gas Station Proprietor: Yessir.
Anton Chigurh: What time do you close?

Gas Station Proprietor: Now. We close now.
Anton Chigurh: Now is not a time. What time do you close?

Anton Chigurh: And you know what's going to happen now. You should admit your situation. There would be more dignity in it.
Carson Wells: You go to hell.
Anton Chigurh: [Chuckles] Alright. Let me ask you something. If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?
Carson Wells: Do you

have any idea how crazy you are?
Anton Chigurh: You mean the nature of this conversation?
Carson Wells: I mean the nature of you.

Ed Tom Bell: That man that shot you died in prison.
Ellis: Angola. Yeah...
Ed Tom Bell: What you'd done he had been released?
Ellis: Oh, I dunno. Nothing. Wouldn't be no point in it.
Ed Tom Bell: I'm kindly surprised to hear you say that.
Ellis: Well all the time

ya spend trying to get back what's been took from ya, more is going out the door. After a while you just have to try to get a tourniquet on it. Your granddad never asked me to sign on as a deputy.

Llewelyn Moss: [talking over phone] Hello?
Anton Chigurh: Yes?
Llewelyn Moss: Is uh, Carson Wells there?
Anton Chigurh: Not in the sense that you mean. You need to come see me.
Llewelyn Moss: Who is this?
Anton Chigurh: You know who it is. You need to talk to me.

Llewelyn Moss: I don't need to talk to you.
Anton Chigurh: I think you do. Do you know where I'm going?
Llewelyn Moss: Why would I care where you're going?
Anton Chigurh: I know where you are.
Llewelyn Moss: Yeah? Where am I?
Anton Chigurh: You're in the

hospital across the river, but that's not where I'm going. Do you know where I'm going?
Llewelyn Moss: [blood flows on the floor, and so Chigurh lifts his feet and rests them on the bed] Yeah, I know where you're going.
Anton Chigurh: Alright.
Llewelyn Moss: You know she won't be there.
Anton Chigurh:

It doesn't make any difference where she is.
Llewelyn Moss: So what are you going up there for?
Anton Chigurh: You know how this is going to turn out, don't you?
Llewelyn Moss: Nope.
Anton Chigurh: I think you do. So this is what I'll offer - you bring me the money and I'll let her go. Otherwise she's

accountable, same as you. That's the best deal you're gonna get. I won't tell you you can save yourself, because you can't.

Carson Wells: Call me when you've had enough. I can even let you keep a little of the money.
Llewelyn Moss: If I was cuttin' deals, why wouldn't I go deal with this guy Chigurh?
Carson Wells: No no. No. You don't understand. You can't make a deal with him. Even if you gave him the money he'd still kill you. He's a peculiar man. You

could even say that he has principles. Principles that transcend money or drugs or anything like that. He's not like you. He's not even like me.
Llewelyn Moss: He don't talk as much as you, I give him points for that.

Ed Tom Bell: Carla Jean, thank you for coming.
Carla Jean Moss: Don't know why I did. I told you, I don't know where he is.
Ed Tom Bell: You hadn't heard from him?
Carla Jean Moss: No, I ain't.
Ed Tom Bell: Nuthin'?
Carla Jean Moss: Not word one.

Ed Tom Bell: Would you tell me if you had?
Carla Jean Moss: Well, I don't know. He don't need any trouble from you.
Ed Tom Bell: It ain't me he's in trouble with.
Carla Jean Moss: Who's he in trouble with then?
Ed Tom Bell: Some pretty bad people. These people will kill him, Carla Jean.

They won't quit.
Carla Jean Moss: He won't neither. He never has. He can take all comers.
Ed Tom Bell: [Ed Tom sighs heavily] You know Charlie Walser's, got that place out east of Sanderson? Well, you know how they used to slaughter beeves, hit 'em right there with a maul, truss 'em up and slit their throats? Here, ol' Charlie's got one all trussed

up, all set to drain him and the beef comes to, starts thrashing around. Six hundred pounds of very pissed-off livestock. If you'll excuse the... Well... Charlie grabs the gun there, shoot the damn thing in the head, but with all the swingin' and the thrashin', it's a glance-shot, ricochets around, comes back and hits Charlie in the shoulder. You go see Charlie, he still can't pick up his right

hand for his hat... The point bein', that even in the contest between man and steer, the issue is not certain.