Brokeback Mountain Quotes

“I wish I knew how to quit you.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“The shirt seemed heavy until he saw there was another shirt inside it, the sleeves carefully worked down inside Jack’s sleeves. It was his own plaid shirt, lost, he’d thought, long ago in some damn laundry, his dirty shirt, the pocket ripped, buttons missing, stolen by Jack and hidden here inside Jack’s own shirt, the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“You got no fuckin idea how bad it gets. I'm not you. I can't make it on a couple a high-altitude fucks once or twice a year. You're too much for me, Ennis, you son of a whoreson bitch. I wish I knew how to quit you.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“Late in the afternoon, thunder growling, that same old green pickup rolled in and he saw Jack get out of the truck, beat up Resistol tilted back. A hot jolt scalded Ennis and he was out on the landing pulling the door closed behind him. Jack took the stairs two and two. They seized each other by the shoulders, hugged mightily, squeezing the breath out of each other, saying, son of a bitch, son of a bitch, then, and easily as the right key turns the lock tumblers, their mouths came together, and hard, Jack’s big teeth bringing blood, his hat falling to the floor, stubble rasping, wet saliva welling, and the door opening and Alma looking out for a few seconds at Ennis’s straining shoulders and shutting the door again and still they clinched, pressing chest and groin and thigh and leg together, treading on each other’s toes until they pulled apart to breathe and Ennis, not big on endearments, said what he said to his horses and his daughters, little darlin.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“Nothing ended, nothing begun, nothing resolved.”
― Annie Proux, Brokeback Mountain

“... and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it.”
― E. Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“What Jack remembered and craved in a way he could neither help nor understand was the time that distant summer on Brokeback when Ennis had come up behind him and pulled him close, the silent embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger. They had stood that way for a long time in front of the fire, its burning tossing ruddy chunks of light, the shadow of their bodies a single column against the rock. The minutes ticked by from the round watch in Ennis's pocket, from the sticks in the fire settling into coals. Stars bit through the wavy heat layers above the fire. Ennis's breath came slow and quiet, he hummed, rocked a little in the sparklight and Jack leaned against the steady heartbeat, the vibrations of the humming like faint electricity and, standing, he fell into sleep that was not sleep but something else drowsy and tranced until Ennis, dredging up a rusty but still useable phrase from the childhood time before his mother died, said, "Time to hit the hay, cowboy. I got a go. Come on, you're sleepin on your feet like a horse," and gave Jack a shake, a push, and went off in the darkness. Jack heard his spurs tremble as he mounted, the words "see you tomorrow," and the horse's shuddering snort, grind of hoof on stone. Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see nor feel that it was Jack he held. And maybe, he thought, they'd never get much farther that that. Let be, let be.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“You know, friend, this is a goddamn bitch of a unsatisfactory situation.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“One thing never changed: the brilliant charge of their infrequent couplings was darkened by the sense of time flying, never enough time, never enough.”
― Annie Proux, Brokeback Mountain

“All the travelin I ever done is going around the coffeepot looking for the handle.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“and they shook hands, hit each other on the
shoulder, then there was forty feet of distance between them and
nothing to do but drive away in opposite directions. Within a mile
Ennis felt like someone was pulling his guts out hand over hand a
yard at a time. He stopped at the side of the road and, in the whirling
new snow, tried to puke but nothing came up. He felt about as bad as
he ever had and it took a long time for the feeling to wear off.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“And he would wake sometimes in grief, sometimes with the old sense of joy and release; the pillow sometimes wet, sometimes the sheets.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“As it did go. They never talked about the sex, let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in the full daylight with the hot sun striking down, and at evening in the fire glow, quick, rough, laughing and snorting, no lack of noises, but saying not a goddamn word except once Ennis said, “I’m not no queer,” and Jack jumped in with “Me neither. A one-shot thing. Nobody’s business but ours.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“The room stank of semen and smoke and sweat and whiskey, of old carpet and sour hay, saddle leather, shit and cheap soap.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“Jack, in his dark camp, saw Ennis as night fire, a red spark on the huge black mass of mountain.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“...all them things I don't know could get you killed if I come to know them”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“... Ennis was back on his feet and somehow, as a coat hanger is straightened to open a locked car and then bent again to its original shape, they torqued things almost to where they had been, for what they'd said was no news. Nothing ended, nothing began, nothing resolved.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“Try this one,' said Jack, 'and I'll say it just one time. Tell you what, we could a had a good life together, a fuckin real good life. You wouldn't do it, Ennis, so what we got now is Brokeback Mountain. Everything built on that. It's all we got, boy, fuckin all, so I hope you know that if you don't never know the rest. Count the damn few times we been together in twenty years. Measure the fuckin short leash you keep me on, then ask me about Mexico and then tell me you'll kill me for needin it and not hardly never gettin it. You got no fuckin idea how bad it gets. I'm not you. I can't make it on a couple a high-altitude fucks once or twice a year. You're too much for me, Ennis, you son of a whoreson bitch. I wish I knew how to quit you.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“When it came -- thirty cents -- he pinned it up in his trailer, brass-headed tack in each corner. Below it he drove a nail and on the nail he hung the wire hanger and the two old shirts suspended from it. He stepped back and looked
at the ensemble through a few stinging tears.

“Jack, I swear -- “ he said, though Jack had never asked him to swear anything and was himself not the swearing kind.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“He could smell Jack - the intensely familiar odor of cigarettes, musky sweat, and a faint sweetness like grass, and with it the rushing cold of the mountain.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“That summer,” said Ennis. “When we split up after we got paid out I had gut cramps so bad I pulled over and tried to puke, thought I ate somethin bad at that place in Dubois. Took me about a year a figure out it was that I shouldn’t a let you out a my sights. Too late then by a long, long while.”

“Friend,” said Jack. “We got us a fuckin situation here.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“Again the ranch is on the market and they’ve shipped out the last of the horses, paid everybody off the day before, the owner saying, ‘Give them to the real estate shark, I’m out a here,” dropping the keys in Ennis’s hand. He might have to stay with his married daughter until he picks up another job, yet he is suffused with a sense of pleasure because Jack Twist was in his dream.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“...still they clinched, pressing chest and groin and thigh and leg together, treading on each other’s toes until they pulled apart to breathe and Ennis, not big on endearments, said what he said to his horses and daughters, little darlin.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“Right," said Jack, and they shook hands, hit each other on the shoulder, then there was forty feet of distance between them and nothing to do but drive away in opposite directions. Within a mile Ennis felt like someone was pulling his guts out hand over hand a yard at a time. He stopped at the side of the road and, in the whirling new snow, tried to puke but nothing came up. He felt about as bad as he ever had and it took a long time for the feeling to wear off.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“...saying not a goddamn word except once Ennis said, “I’m not no queer,” and Jack jumped in with “Me neither. A one-shot thing. Nobody’s business but ours.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“Strikes, eases, dies, leaves a temporary silence.”
― Annie Proux, Brokeback Mountain

“How much is once in a while?” said Jack. “Once in a while ever four fuckin years?”
“No,” said Ennis, forbearing to ask whose fault that was. “I goddamn hate it that you’re goin a drive away in the mornin and I’m goin back to work. But if you can’t fix it you got a stand it,” he said.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“Tu sei troppo importante per me, Ennis, figlio di una puttana troia. Vorrei riuscire a mollarti.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain