- Carolyn: Waaaaayyy back durin' Prohibition times, the government was hammerin' down on all the distilleries, and the Bullitt family of Bullitt County had one of the biggest. Ergo, a big target on their back. So, the legend goes that they took all their money out in the Bullitt County wilderness and buried it. Supposedly millions.
- Gordie: And?
- Carolyn: And what?
- Gordie: That's kind of a short legend.
- Carolyn: Well I don't have a lot of practice tellin' it to make it all flowery.
- The Mr.: What are you, a history nut or a gun nut?
- Gordie: I guess a little bit of both. Fiction was definitely not my thing. I didn't care too much about something somebody just made up out of thin air, you know? Hence, the history books.
- The Mr.: Yeah, well, they say that history is written by the victors.
- Gordie: Which is probably why I'm a gun nut.
- Gordie: You know when people look back on their lives and they regret not doing something? Something that could've changed their lives? This is that crossroads, right here. I, for one, am not gonna turn into some fifty-year-old blob of shit, who's, you know, sittin' around in a shitty house wearing a shitty robe obsessing over the one day that we could've all taken a little trek off the beaten path and, I don't know, potentially found Bullitt motherfuckin' treasure.
- Keaton: I'm just saying, if I were in that Gatsby class of yours, I would've aced that fuckin' paper.
- Robin: Is that right?
- Keaton: Aced it. Yeah, didn't even take that long to read. Finished it just this morning. And that last line, god, stuck with me. 'Our boats float into the green light of tomorrow'?
- Robin: 'So we beat on... boats against the current... borne ceaselessly into the past.'
- Gordie: You know, before I headed off to college and met all you guys, I spent one of those summers trying to "find myself." Which is ridiculous because trying to find yourself straight out of high school is like nailing Jell-O to the wall. But there I was, I'd saved up some money, you know, I'm gonna head out to Big Sur and rough it for a few months. And I wanted to see the Pacific - I had never seen it before. I had never seen a state outside of Indiana for that matter. So there I am, I'm at Big Sur and the first thing I do is, I just start trudging it up this mountain. I'm gonna get to the tippy-top of this mountain so I can watch the sunset over the Pacific, and, you know...
- Wayne: Find yourself.
- Gordie: Man, that sounds really stupid. But at the time, you know, yeah, of course. So, there I am, I'm hoofin' it up this mountain, and I'm not taking my eyes off the top, I'm just going and going and going, watching so I don't fall down. But I'm not as fast as the sun setting. So by the time I get to the top, it's pitch-black. So I turn around to head back down, and BOOM, there she is. The Pacific. She had been at my back the entire time. If I had turned around once, you know, I would've been able to see the sun set over her, but...
- Wayne: [beat, smiles] You told me that before.
- Gordie: It's a sad fuckin' story, man.
- Keaton: Hey guys, uh, new plan. I'm not digging for treasure anymore, I'm now digging my own grave. So, when I'm done... JUST FUCKING BURY ME PLEASE.
- Gordie: [fake sneeze] Groom card!
- Keaton: I'm gonna beat you to death with this, man, I swear to god I will beat you to death...
- Gordie: With that? How much did you save on that there kiddie shovel, Mr. Merlot?
- Keaton: Fifty-nine cents, bitch.
- Gordie: There was a guy at a meeting once that said he kept a Vodka shooter in his pocket to remind him of his weakness. I mean that's all those meetings really were was reminders of my weakness. And for ten fucking years that's all I did. I just wallowed in it. I wallowed in my weakness.
- Big Aviators: Some chicks don't know how they are till they've loosened up a little bit with some drinks.
- Gordie: Maybe she wasn't clear enough, so allow me to be clearer: Fuck. Off.
- Big Aviators: You know, that's not what I heard her say. I heard her say she just might need a good ol-fashioned Kentucky-fuckin'.
- Gordie: Because it gives your life meaning and gets you closer to that "Truth" with a capital "T." And you said that all meaningful stories, no matter how fantastical or not real they are, hold some of those deep truths.
- Robin: You're seeing things...
- Gordie: Yeah, a lot clearer now. And I just need you to know something. Look at me. Robin, I would never do anything to hurt you. Never ever ever ever. Never ever ever do anything to hurt you.
- Robin: Ten years, man. Ten fucking years. I thought you were better than this.
- Gordie: That's a sad fuckin' story.
- The Mr.: You know, when you're firing at anything that moves in the jungle in the dead of night, God only knows how many men you've killed. But I had men in my platoon who wanted to know. They saw it as a point of pride to get to a hundred or some such thing. They were collecting prizes from the dead. Me, I always preferred not knowin'.
- [beat]
- The Mr.: But there was this one. This one that I hit from up close, and I saw him go down not very far in front of me, and I had to know. I had to look. So I wandered out into the dark - and I saw him lyin' there in all the wet ferns and moss. Wide-eyed, staring up at the moon through the trees. His blood black in the moonlight.
- [finishes his bourbon]
- The Mr.: And I knew I got him then.
- Carolyn: Southern hospitality dictates you say no, and I say yes, and we go back and forth a buncha times until you finally agree, which is what you wanna do anyway.
- Wayne: You know, I'm not one for signs and all that, but if you ask me, the reason why this whole thing isn't going your way is... well, I'm gonna be blunt. You're not ready to get married. I'm not saying anything you don't already know. A commitment is a pledge for the future, and you can't commit to anything if you keep dwelling in the past.
- Gordie: I had a little bit of a spill back there. Hurt my head real bad. It's got me seein' double...
- Wayne: Listen to me, Gordie. Deep down you're a good person. But you're burying that person deeper and deeper. "To thine own self be true."
- Gordie: [takes a deep hit off a joint, coughs and spits] Keats, was this buried in your backpack since high school?
- Keaton: No, I got that just last week, from a guy who knew a guy.
- Gordie: How much did you pay for this shit?
- Robin: Okay, it can't be that bad. Here, let me try it.
- Keaton: I'm not a cheapskate with everything, some things I actually do spend some money on...
- Robin: [Robin takes a hit, coughs violently]
- Keaton: Not a lot...
- Robin: That is some evil shit, Keats.
- Gordie: [takes the joint back] I'll fall on the grenade. Buncha stems and seeds, but it's something.
- Keaton: The dealer says that's the best part.
- Robin: Who am I kidding? Every time we get together, I fool myself into thinking it's gonna go back to normal.
- Carolyn: We Kentuckians, every buck-toothed, country bumpkin one of us, we're all at least smart to stay away from diggin' up what ain't ours.
- The Mr.: Where did you serve?
- Gordie: That obvious, huh?
- The Mr.: Oh I know a fellow serviceman when I see one.
- Gordie: I don't know how much you can call it "servin'." I was called up by Uncle Sam, hopped on an airplane, then a helicopter, and I landed in the middle of Saigon, it was January 29th, 1968.
- The Mr.: That is some bad luck, kid.
- Wayne: Banding together in common weakness is what creates strength. It's the only way to deal with all the horrors in this world. It's why people get married and form friendships and reunite to relive the good old days.
- Robin: You chloroformed him?
- Keaton: Well, it was a plan B sort of thing. I knew he wouldn't go without a fight. There's your proof.
- Robin: That's real date-rapist move right there, Keats...
- Keaton: It's ether from the photography store. Besides, who knees a guy in the balls right when he wakes up?
- Robin: Self-defense class.
- Keaton: You're a monster.
- The Mrs.: Listen, when I first came here, I was even younger than you are now, and I didn't know the first thing about chickens. They were just a buncha dumb birds as far as I was concerned, but I filled this coop up with hens. And then I got myself one rooster. Well before you knew it he had pecked two of those hens to death and scared the livin' hell outta all the rest of 'em so they quit layin' their eggs. All it took was one rooster. And so I shot that rooster. I didn't see any reason to do otherwise.
- Robin: You don't always have to shoot the rooster.
- Keaton: It didn't make a difference whether we had the money or not. They thought we did without any proof or anything. You saw him, Gordie. You saw him, he went for that rifle, but you got to it first. He was gonna shoot me. You saved my life. You saved me. He was gonna kill me.
- Gordie: I killed him...
- Keaton: Yeah, but don't you get it? The legend was real. It was real. I can't fucking believe it myself. You wanted to come out into the woods and look for buried treasure. Well here you go! Buried fuckin' treasure. This right here, this is "Truth" with a capital "T."