- Henry: [Holding the hand of a corpse just fished out of the lake with a fishing lure dangling from it] I'm surprised you caught anything with this lure!
- Danny O'Brien: I always pictured you in some smoky hole in the wall, hunched over your computer, spewing your bile at the military-industrial complex.
- Mitch Paine: Well, it is a hole in the wall - but I'm surrounded by a bunch of anti-tobacco Fascists.
- Danny O'Brien: I think they call them "pro-oxygen" these days.
- Mitch Paine: There is not a corrupt bone in Dickie Pilager's body, he's just - what? - user-friendly!
- Dickie Pilager: ['accidentally' conducting an impromptu press conference] I repeat - I'm not raising taxes. We can't just keep throwing the taxpayers' hard-earned money at these perceived - and some of them I admit are real - so-called social problems. We have to get our priorities straight. Education is a priority. Affordable housing for our working people is a priority. Health care is a priority. Our economy is a priority. The environmental - the whole environmental... arena - that's a big priority. Building new roads and maintaining the present - keeping the infrastructure in place, where it belongs, that's a priority...
- Nora Allardyce: What isn't a priority?
- Dickie Pilager: [stumped] What's not a priority... is those matters which are of less of a - not that they're not important but - if you're going to have a front burner, which is where you want your priorities, it's like... cooking... there needs to be something sitting on the back one. And that's where your other organizations, your church people and your... organizations formed to help these things, will be happy to pitch in if only government would get out of their way...
- Dickie Pilager: [conducting a press conference] In the case of capital offenses I am absolutely in favor of the death penalty. You hear stories about frontier justice - you can bet that the wrongdoers, the folks who couldn't play by the rules, had some respect for that. And there was no -
- [starts floundering]
- Dickie Pilager: it didn't cost the taxpayer - if they had had taxpayers back then... those were the good old days, I suppose -
- [gathers steam again]
- Dickie Pilager: and all you needed was a good strong rope and a tree to hang it from!
- Reporter #1: So you'll be proposing tougher criminal legis...
- Dickie Pilager: My message to criminals is this: straighten up or get out. There's no place for you in our state. You do the crime, and by God, you're gonna have to face your lumps.
- Nora Allardyce: But the majority of those serving time for drug possession are...
- Dickie Pilager: You want to change the behavior? Stiffen the consequences!
- Nora Allardyce: There have been reports, Mr. Pilager, that before you became involved in politics you had considerable experience with...
- Dickie Pilager: Look, if you're up in a helicopter, airplane, something that flies, you don't want your pilot intoxicated with drugs, do you? And it's that way with our schoolchildren... Junior can't read if he's high on crack. Yeah, air is thin enough up here!
- [points to another reporter]
- Dickie Pilager: Yes?
- Chuck Raven: 'Environmental Heritage Initiative'...
- Chandler Tyson: We thought it sounded better than 'Developers' Bill of Rights.'
- Maddy Pilager: You know, the Amazon women amputated one of their breasts.
- [Draws back imaginary bow and arrow]
- Maddy Pilager: Got in the way of the bowstring.
- Wes Benteen: People want to back a winner. They need to feel a part of something bigger than they are. They used to advertise the quality of a product - - tastes great, whitens your teeth, shaves close, rides like a dream - - Now what do they push? America's number one soft drink. Best-selling mid-sized utility vehicle. It isn't "buy the product." It's "Join the club." You make people feel part of a winner, they'll follow you anywhere.
- Wes Benteen: American's don't have the patience for underdogs that they used to. A coach goes three seasons without a ring, he's out on his ass... as he should be.
- Sheriff Joe Skaggs: Throw a dead body into a cave and three days later it comes back out into the world, all on its own.
- [laughing]
- Sheriff Joe Skaggs: Sure a lot of people will buy that.
- [first lines]
- Ad Spokesman: Richard Pilager cares about Colorado.
- Chuck Raven: Where there hell is he?
- Lloyd: He's in with his, uh, spiritual adviser.
- Chuck Raven: Oh, Jesus Chris!
- Lloyd: Well, He may be in there too.
- Danny O'Brien: [about his wife] Maybe she wanted somebody more predictable.
- Nora Allardyce: You're totally predictable, Danny. You get involved in something positive, and you find a way to fuck it up.
- Casey Lyle: [conducting tour] You know, we think we can wound this planet. We think we can cut costs and stick the money in our pockets and just walk away with it. But someday the bill comes due.
- Wes Benteen: [riding horses] Take a good look Dickie.
- Dickie Pilager: Mountains...
- Wes Benteen: I see a big sign that says, no Americans allowed.
- Dickie Pilager: [looking around] You do?
- Wes Benteen: You look at a map, they got half the west under lock and key.
- Dickie Pilager: They?
- Wes Benteen: Bureau of Land Management, Forrest Service, National Parks, the State.
- Dickie Pilager: [giving speech] A government strong enough, brave enough, to maintain the cultural equilibrium.
- Lloyd: What's cultural equilibrium mean?
- Chuck Raven: No hand-outs for homos.
- Danny O'Brien: [Referring to Dickie Pilager on TV] He seems a bit more gubenatorial with the sound off.
- Maddy Pilager: [to Danny] I tried living in California for a while, but there was no one out there to embarrass but myself.
- Chuck Raven: [Concerning the fishing lure Pilager was using in the ad] We're trying to attract voters, not fish.
- Lloyd: [Referring to the dead body on the other end of the fishing pole] Whatta want me to do with this?
- Chuck Raven: You don't reel it in, and you don't let it get away!
- Danny O'Brien: I really don't do politics anymore. Debbie always said it was bad for my mental health.