Doc Quotes

“We are none of us born into Eden," Doc said reasonably. "world's plenty evil when we get here. Question is, what's the best way to play a bad hand?"...”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“Every one of them has a story, and every story begins with a man who failed her. A husband who came home from the war, good for nothin' but drink. A father who didn't come home at all, or a stepfather who did. A brother who should have protected her. A beau who promised marriage and left when he got what he wanted, because he wouldn't marry a slut. If a girl like that has lost her way, it's-because some worthless no-account-sonofabitch left her in the wilderness alone!”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“At the risk of descending to unscientific generalizations, 90 percent of Texans give the other 10 percent a bad name." - Attributed to John H. "Doc" Holliday”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“Horses are mirrors. They'll show you back whatever you show them. Watch a man with a horse, and you'll see what's inside his own self.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“Home," he said softly. "If there is a more beautiful word in any language, I do not know it.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“Bein' born is craps," he decided. He glanced at Morg and let loose that sly, lopsided smile of his. "How we live is poker.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“You know how people say, Don't borrow trouble? Well, said Morgan, I guess it's the opposite of that. Doc is borrowing happiness.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“The Georgian had used more words in 5 minutes than Wyatt had spoken during 1872 and 1873 combined.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“I ain't movin' to Arizona! Dammit, there is nothin' there but gravel and scorpions.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“How long ago did she die, Wyatt?" Morgan pressed. "Is it nine years now?"
"Eight," Wyatt said, halfway between stubborn and sad. "I promised to love her all my life, Morg. I meant to keep my word."
That shut Morgan up, but Doc's eyes opened and he gazed at Wyatt for a long time. "What?" Wyatt asked.
"That is your ghost life, Wyatt," Doc told him, and closed his eyes again. "That is the life you might have had. This is the life you've got.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“Doc seemed to gather himself to say something important, and spoke as firmly as he could, though his voice was somewhere between a whisper and a whine. "Wyatt, I cannot make you another denture. No more fights. You get that mad again, shoot the bastard. Promise me.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“In Texas, rocks are considered an adequate weaponry during schoolyard scuffles. Dallas children carry a brace of loaded pistols, a concealed Derringer, and a 6 inch Toadsticker in one boot. That's the girls of course. Boys bring howitzers to class.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“They strolled toward town, stopping now and then to let him catch his breath and to gaze upward, for the west Kansas sky is black velvet on clear, cool December nights, and the Milky Way is strung across it like the diamond necklace of a crooked banker's mistress.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“Flaubert tells us that three things are required for happiness: stupidity, selfishness, and good health. I am," he told Morgan, "an unhappy man -”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“He did not believe in luck at all, good or bad. Gamblers believed in luck, and he was not a gambler. Never had been, never would be. John Henry Holliday believed in mathematics, in statistics, in the computation of odds. Fifty-two cards in a deck. Make it easy. Say it's fifty. Any card has a 2 percent chance of being dealt from a full deck. Keep track of what's out. Adjust the probabilities as the hand progresses.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“Every one of them [prostitutes] has a story, and every story begins with a man who failed her. A husband who came home from the war, good for nothin' but drink. A father who didn't come home at all, or a stepfather who did. A brother who should have protected her. A beau who promised marriage and left when he got what he wanted, because he wouldn't marry a slut. If a girl like that has lost her way, it's because some worthless no-account sonofabitch left her in the wilderness alone.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“privileged to share in the athletic power of a large and dangerous animal willing to be controlled by the small, frail strength of a mere human being.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“For he had never heard anything like it--did not know such music existed in the world--and it was hard to believe that a man he knew could play it with his own two hands. There were parts of it like birdsong, and parts like rolling thunder and hard rain, and parts that glittered like fresh snow when the sun comes out and it’s so cold the air takes your breath away. And parts were like a dust devil spinning past, or a cyclone on the horizon, and all of it cried out for words that he had only read in books and had never said aloud.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“Hope—cruelest of the evils that escaped Pandora’s box—smiled on him gently all that summer.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“[I]t is easier to ask forgiveness than to obtain permission.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“...Doc's idea of "clarifyin' a point of contention" came awful close to spitting in a man's eye.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“We are none of us born into Eden,” Doc said reasonably. “World’s plenty evil when we get here. Question is, what’s the best way to play a bad hand? Abolitionists thought that all they had to do to right an ancient wrong was set the slaves free.” He looked at Morg. “Trouble was, they didn’t have a plan in the world for what came next. Cut ‘em loose. That was the plan. Let ‘em eat cake, I guess.”
He was muttering now, eyes on the bridge. “Four years of war. Hundreds of thousands of casualties...All so black folks in the South could be treated as bad as millworkers in the North! Pay as little as you can. Work ‘em ‘til they’re too old or sick or hurt to do the job. Then cut ‘em loose! Hire a starvin’ Irish replacement! That’s abolitionist freedom for you ...Heartless bastards ... ‘Free the slaves’ sounds good until you start wonderin’ how Chainey and Wilson would make a livin’ when they were already so old they couldn’t do a lick of work. What was a little child like Sophie Walton supposed to do? No kin who’d care for her ...” He looked up. “I doubt the abolitionists anticipated the Ku Klux Klan either, but here it is, makin’ life worse than ever for black folks.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“It didn’t occur to him to think that better is not the same as well. Was he fooling himself? He would not have said so. Even at twenty-two, when his diagnosis was confirmed, he was realistic. Most suffer. Everyone dies. He knew how, if not when. Now more than ever, he was determined to cheat the Fates of entertainment, but naturally, his time would come. When it did, he believed he would accept death as Socrates had: with cool philosophical distance. He would say something funny, or profound, or loving. Then he would let life fall gracefully from his hands. Horseshit, as James Earp would say, of the highest order. The truth is this. On the morning of August 14, 1878, Doc Holliday believed in his own death exactly as you do—today, at this very moment. He knew that he was mortal, just as you do. Of course, you know you’ll die someday, but … not quite the same way you know that the sun will rise tomorrow or that dropped objects fall. The great bitch-goddess Hope sees to that. Sit in a physician’s office. Listen to a diagnosis as bad as Doc’s. Beyond the first few words, you won’t hear a thing. The voice of Hope is soft but impossible to ignore. This isn’t happening, she assures you. There’s been a mix-up with the tests. Hope swears, You’re different. You matter. She whispers, Miracles happen. She says, often quite reasonably, New treatments are being developed all the time! She promises, You’ll beat the odds. A hundred to one? A thousand to one? A million to one? Eight to five, Hope lies. Odds are, when your time comes, you won’t even ask, “For or against?” You’ll swing up on that horse, and ride.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“That was when it came to him that the only unmixed happiness he could think of was when he quit his job with the city after that fight with Bob Wright. So he told Doc that, too, and said, “I never meant to be a lawman. Stumbled into it, really. When I quit, it was a weight off.” Dealing”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“Certainly, nobody imagined that Mr. Lincoln would order an armed invasion over the affair. When he did exactly that, the entire South exploded with defiance and patriotism, cheering the new nation—sovereign and independent—that had just been born. In”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“Dead men don’t pay for baths, haircuts, meals, or beds. Dead men don’t buy new clothes, or ammunition, or saddles. Dead men don’t desire fancy Coffeyville boots with Texas stars laid into the shank. They don’t gamble, and they don’t spend money on liquor or whores. And that was why, when the Texans got to Dodge, there was really only one rule to remember. Don’t kill the customers. All other ordinances were, customarily, negotiable.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“Eat a toad first thing in the morning; the rest of the day will seem pleasurable by comparison”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“the west Kansas sky is black velvet on clear, cool December nights, and the Milky Way is strung across it like the diamond necklace of a crooked banker’s mistress.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“This much is sure: if Kate hadn’t gone back to Doc Holiday on the afternoon of June 10th, 1878, you never would have heard of him. You wouldn’t know the names of Wyatt Earp, or any of his brothers. The Clantons and McLaurys would be utterly forgotten. And Tombstone would be nothing more than an Arizona ghost town with an ironic name. Too late now.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“No, sir,” Wyatt insisted. “There can’t be one law for rich Texans and another law for broke Texans, and another law for Negroes, and another one for Chinamen, and squaws, and Irishmen, and whores, and another one for everybody else. I can’t parse it that way, Dog! I am not that smart! There’s got to be one law for everybody, or I can’t do this job. You want my badge or not?”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc