- Ruby: Every piece of this is man's bullshit. They call this war "a cloud over the land" but they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say "Shit, it's rainin'!"
- Ada: If you are fighting, stop fighting. If you are marching, stop marching... Come back to me. Come back to me is my request.
- [Ruby has just walked in on Inman and Ada talking by the campfire]
- Ruby: Number one - shut this door, it's freezing. Number two - shut that door, it's freezing. I'm laying on my back, with my fingers poked in my ears trying to shut out who's got a bag of diamonds and who's carrying a tray. If you want to get three feet up a bull's ass, listen to what sweethearts whisper to each other. Now, if you're going to wimble wimble all night, I'm going to sleep in with him.
- [she stomps into her father's hut]
- Ada: I can talk about farming in Latin. I can read French. I can lace up a corset, God knows. I can name the principal rivers in Europe, just don't ask me to name one stream in this county! I can embroider but I can't darn! I can arrange cut flowers but I can't grow them! If a thing has a function, if I might *do* something with it, then it wasn't considered suitable!
- Ruby: ...Why?
- Ada: Ruby, you can ask 'why' about pretty much everything to do with me! This fence is about the first thing that I've ever done that might produce an actual result.
- Ruby: [about her father] Oh, he's so full of manure, that man! We could lay him in the dirt and grow another one just like him.
- Ada: What we have lost will never be returned to us. The land will not heal - too much blood. All we can do is learn from the past and make peace with it.
- Maddy: See, I think there's a plan. There's a design for each and every one of us. You look at nature. Bird flies somewhere, picks up a seed, shits the seed out, plant grows. Bird's got a job, shit's got a job, seed's got a job. And you've got a job.
- Ruby: [On discussing the war's origin] Every piece of this is man's bullshit. They call this war a cloud over the land. But they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say 'Shit, it's raining!'
- Inman: If you could see my inside - now, whatever you wanna name it - my spirit? That's what I fear. I think I'm ruined. They kept tryin' to put me in the ground. But I wasn't ready,
- Ada: Inman...
- Inman: But if I had - if I had goodness, I lost it. If I had anything tender in me, I shot it dead. How could I write to you after what I done, what I seen?
- Inman: You are all that keeps me from slidin' into some dark place.
- Ada: How did I keep you? We barely knew each other. It was a few moments.
- Inman: A thousand moments! They're like a bag - of tiny diamonds. Don't matter if they're real or things I made up. The shape of your neck. That's real. The way you felt under my hands when I pulled you to me.
- Ada: You were plowing a field.
- Inman: You were carrying a tray.
- Ada: You wouldn't come in.
- Inman: No, I wouldn't go in.
- Ada: So that's why I had to carry a tray. So I could come out to see you.
- Inman: That kiss - which I kissed every day of my walking.
- Ada: Every day I was waiting, longing. Longing to see your face.
- Rev. Monroe: I have no plans to preach war in my church, Mr. Inman.
- Inman: I imagine God is weary of being called down on both sides of an argument.
- Ruby: My daddy, he could play six tunes on a fiddle. Got hisself shot dead at Petersburg. I was like his goat, or some critter tethered to a post. He left me once. Up in them mountains, I was eight, he was gone over two and a half weeks.
- Ada: He left you?
- Ruby: Uh-huh, I was all right, My daddy, he'd walk 40 miles for liquor and not 40 inches for kindness.
- [last lines]
- Ada: [voiceover] I looked once more down Sally's well, and this time there was nothin' there to haunt me. Just clouds. Clouds, and then... sun.
- Inman: Ada, I wanna marry you. If you'll have me.
- Ada: Isn't there some religion where you just say I marry you, three times, and then you're man and wife?
- Inman: I marry you, I marry you, I marry you.
- [Ada laughs]
- Inman: Why is that funny?
- Ada: No, I think it's I divorce you three times and then you're not married anymore.
- [Ada laughs]
- Inman: I can wait for ya.
- Ada: Oh, Inman, I marry you, I marry you, I marry you, I marry you, I marry you.
- [Ada and Inman kiss]
- Ada: I have so... I have so many buttons, is that alright? Will you turn your back?
- [Inman turns his back but then he turns back around]
- Inman: Nope. No, I will not.
- Blind Man: Gettin' better, soldier?
- Inman: Seems that way.
- Blind Man: I wouldn't hurry. The war's almost done.Don't need your help to lose it.
- [chuckles]
- Inman: Been meanin' to ask you, where'd you take your wound?
- Blind Man: Oh, before I was born. Never set eyes on a thing in this world. Not a tree, a gun, or a woman. Put my hand on all three, though.
- [first lines]
- Ada: [voiceover] Dear Mr. Inman, I began by counting the days, then the months. I don't count on anything anymore except the hope that you will return, and the silent fear that in the years since we saw each other, this war, this awful war, will have changed us both beyond all reckoning.
- [Swanger's sons are joining the Confederate Army]
- Esco Swanger: What exactly do you think you're going to be fighting for?
- Acton Swanger: The South!
- Esco Swanger: Last I checked, "the South" was a direction.
- Inman: Come out of there.
- Bosie: No, sir. Here's fine.
- Inman: I'll just have to shoot the horse from under you.
- Bosie: Shoot her. She's not mine. You riding Mr. Teague's animal?
- Inman: I am.
- Bosie: He dead?
- Inman: I hope so. Look, how old are you? Give me your gun and ride home, I'm done fighting. I'm sick of it.
- Bosie: I give you my gun and you'll shoot me dead.
- Inman: I will not shoot you, but nor am I walking down that mountain looking over my shoulder for you.
- Bosie: That's what you call a conundrum. I tell you what I've got on my side.
- Inman: What have you got on your side?
- Bosie: The confidence of youth.
- Maddy: [while petting one of her goats] I've learned a person can pretty much survive off of a goat. A goat gives you company, and milk, and cheese... and when you need it, good meat.
- [slaughters the goat]
- Ruby: We got something for you.
- Ada: For all your kindness. Coffee and pie.
- Ruby: That's real coffee. It ain't chicory and dirt.
- Sally: Thank you both. Ruby, I look forward to this. We all do. Esco and me.
- Ruby: [grinning at Ada] She made it.
- Ada: I made it.
- Sally: Good God in Heaven.
- Ruby: I'm still livin'.
- Ruby: [to her father] Just so you know - you're not eating inside. Number one: they hang people round here for taking in deserters. Number two: even if they gave out prizes you'd still eat outside.
- Inman: She got me a book, Ada Monroe. A man by the name of Bartram. He wrote about his travels. Sometimes, just readin' the name of a place - near home - Sorell Cove, Bishop's Creek. Those places belonged to people before us. To the Cherokee. What did he call Cold Mountain? How could a name - not even a real name - break your heart? It's her. She's the place I'm headin'. And I hardly know her. I hardly know her! And I just can't seem to get back to her,
- Ruby: Ain't no man better than me. On account of there's no man around here that ain't old, or full o' mischief.
- [Veasey finds a saw]
- Veasey: Hey! Look at this! This is a good saw.
- Inman: It's not yours. You take it, you make us another enemy. You are a Christian- don't you know your commandments?
- Veasey: You'll find the good Lord very flexible on the subject of property. We could do a lot with this saw. Cut down a tree. Play music with it. You're gonna thank me for this saw.
- Inman: I'll say thank you when I've lost you and I've found some food.
- Inman: Move away from the baby!
- Bardolph: Don't shoot.
- Inman: Take off your boots. Take off your pants and your shirt.
- [Bardolph takes off his boots, pants, and shirt]
- Bardolph: Don't shoot me, please. We're starving. We haven't eaten.
- Inman: You'd better get running before you catch your death of cold.
- Bardolph: Thanks, thank you. I will.
- [Bardolph starts to run, and then Sara shoots him]
- Ruby: [when Ada comes back with Inman] Congratulations. I'll send you out with a shot gun a lot more.
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