The Fugitive quotes

Now six months a fugitive, this is Richard Kimble with a new identity, and for as long as it is safe, a new name: James Lincoln. He thinks of the day when he might find the man with one arm, but now is now, and this is how it is with him. Another journey, another place. Walk neither too fast, nor too slow. Beware the eyes of strangers. Keep moving. The right one, or will it be a mistake? Is this the trap where it will end? Safe, for now. Another room. Windows look out and look in. Get busy. Look closely. Be sure of this: they'll never stop looking. He'll never stop. Not Lieutenant Gerard. .... Ready. A job: What will it be? Make no mistakes. Be ready for the questions, and hope there won't be too many.

Now six months, two weeks, and another thousand miles a fugitive, this is Richard Kimble. And this is how it is with him.

Now, ten months after his escape, take Richard Kimble. Unjustly convicted of murder. Put him down in the Missouri hills. A handyman, driving a truck for a local fuel and feed company. Once again, he has changed his identity. He has become Jim Fowler, a stranger in town.

This is Jim Fowler, about to die. He will last long enough to take the bus out of Hainesville, Missouri, and then a new identity must emerge, a new identity to hide the path of his flight, and the path of his search for the man whose crime has made Richard Kimble the Fugitive.

West Virginia. What used to be a town, before the coal mine gave out. A naked relic now, without future, without hope. Another dreary point in time for Richard Kimble. Eight months a fugitive.

Above the mountain, leaving it far below and behind him, Lieutenant Philip Gerard returns home without the man he had come to find and recapture. The other side of the mountain, of many mountains, a road twisting and turning into the future, without promise, without assurance for the man who must always go alone: Richard Kimble, fugitive.

Santa Barbara, California. Two hours up the coast from Los Angeles. A harbor town, a fishing town, an early mission town. To Richard Kimble, temporarily using the name Jeff Cooper, it has been a sanctuary, but a fugitive knows that a sanctuary becomes a trap if he stays too long.

Richard Kimble has seen the eyes of the hunter. He knows that for Gerard the chase will never end. But his bones ache from running and he needs the love of a girl. For sanctuary, he will risk a trap. For, in the long, long chase, he has lost everything but hope.

A man cannot run forever. Two hours up the coast from Los Angeles, Richard Kimble has found a place he thinks is safe. Here, in the early mission town of Santa Barbara, wearing the name Jeff Cooper, he has begun to put down roots. A man on the run must sooner or later become tied to a town. The look on the face of a girl. The touch of her eyes. But there may always be the doubt. What has he left behind? A footprint? A careless word? A remembered image in the eye of a stranger? A match? What can they track him with? If he is tired enough of running, he will put the doubt aside.

The road north, the road east. For the moment, to Richard Kimble, it makes no difference. The road ends nowhere.

Now, 11 months a fugitive, Richard Kimble emerges from the blackness of hiding into the gray anonymity of another alias: Ray Miller. He thinks of the day when he might find the one-armed man, but for now, Los Angeles, California offers him temporary haven.

This was Ray Miller, cut man. Before that, James Lincoln, bartender. And how many weary lonely, heart-breaking identities before that? Only if he succeeds in discovering the man who made him an outcast, can he again be Richard Kimble.

California. The Imperial Valley. Richard Kimble, now wearing name of Joseph Walker. Occupation: farm laborer. The California sun is hot, and there is a strange antagonism in the eyes of the other workers. A hatred which he cannot fathom. But one which Richard Kimble tries to ignore in his effort to keep the secret of his identity.

There is no celebration for a fugitive. Richard Kimble moves on, his objective always the same: to find the man who alone can deliver him from execution.

Sierra Point, New Mexico. Resident population: 562. Transient population: 1. Richard Kimble, who currently bears the name Al Fleming. It is now more than a year since the escape.