“The Whores Can Come” quotes from Deadwood

Al Swearengen

It wouldn't be the worst thing, backing a loser to Hearst. Let him pick me up from the canvas after, dust me the fuck off. I raise the great man's hand and murmur, best as I can through split lips, "Your man beat my man's balls off, Mr. Hearst." But Hearst's chink boss in that alley ain't to my fuckin' taste. So what if something delays the battle of the chinks? Say, durin' that interval I get to show my ass a few times to Mr. Hearst. Meanwhile, that pain in the balls Wu is sketching up a storm, drawin' fuckin' little pictures of himself brandishin' the lash, drivin' from a delivery ship a quota of chinks to be blown to pieces by dynamite working in the mines for Hearst at half the fee, per chink, that Hearst is paying the San Francisco cocksucker. Now, by this time Hearst has seen my ass so many times, he knows I'm no long-term threat. So some brief opposition of our interests ain't gonna make him feel like he needs to engage me in a death struggle, say, by opposin' local elections. Those circumstances, we can risk backing Wu, and the great man figures, "I am damaged by neither outcome. Why not retire to a neutral corner and test my import against the locals?"

Alma Garret

I've wished sometimes only to play checkers or to occupy myself some other way than having to see and feel so much sadness, or feel every moment how difficult things are, to understand or to live with. I've sometimes felt I couldn't live with them, but I find I can, Sofia. I've found I am, even when I think I'm not or that I can't. Can you look to me now, Sofia? Can you try? I will be so grateful if you will trust me with your sadness, and I will trust you with mine, so that even when we are sad we will be grateful for how much we love each other, and know that we are in the world as much in our pain as in our happiness.

Francis Wolcott

You're a desperate man, aren't you, Tolliver? Desperate. You feel your position weakening.