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

Francis Wolcott: You've approached a group in San Francisco that does business with my employer.
Cy Tolliver: That group and employer bullshit really quickens me with fuckin' trust.
Wolcott: That group you've approached is a fraternal Chinese organization.
Tolliver: "Tong" is not a clever enough word?
Wolcott: You offered them a contract to send members to this camp. That organization has a pre-existing arrangement with my employer.
Tolliver: So you work for who, Wolcott? The railroads? Some mining combination that brings those slant-eyes in by the boatload?
Wolcott: No, sir. I work for one man.

George Hearst: Elections cannot inconvenience me. They ratify my will or I neuter them.

George Hearst: Gold is every man's opportunity. Why do I make that argument? Because every defect in a man and in others a way of taking him. Our agreement that gold has value gives us power to rise above.
Odell: Fond as you are of my mother, without that gold I showed you, I don't expect we'd be out here talking.
George Hearst: That is correct. And for your effrontery at our meal a moment ago, I'd have seen you shot or hanged without second thought. The value I gave the gold restrained me, you see? your utility in connection to it. And because of my gold those at the other tables deferred to my restraint. Gold confers power. Power comes to any man who has the color.

George Hearst: Have you smelt human flesh on the spit?
E.B.: How would I have?
George Hearst: I know the smell.
E.B.: You have been to and fro in the world.
George Hearst: It pleased me to find out.

George Hearst: I knocked holes in these walls. Confinement gives me the fidgets.
Odell: Set yourself up comfortable.
George Hearst: Let me confide as well, Odell, that when people only say to me with other words what I have just said to them, I quickly grow impatient.

George Hearst: I'm to take you for majestically neutral?
Merrick: I'd make the less exalted claim, as a journalist, of keeping my opinions to myself.
George Hearst: You are less majestically neutral than cloaking your cowardice in principle?
Merrick: I can only answer perhaps, Mr. Hearst, events have not yet disclosed to me all that I am.

Hearst: [to Tolliver] The Sheriff recently put me on notice. He is vigilant of my possible "transgressions."
Bullock: You sound drunk to me.
Hearst: Whom are you addressing?
Bullock: You. You sound drunk.
Hearst: Do I? [Bullock nods] Hm. When I say "Go fuck yourself," Sheriff, will you put that down to drunkenness or a high estimate of your athleticism?
Bullock: [growing angry] Did you just tell me, "Fuck myself?"
Hearst: I think I did. And to shut up, or I will quiet you myself.
Bullock: You're under arrest.
Hearst: [defiantly] Fuck you. And shut up, or I will shut you up for good.
[Bullock draws his gun on Hearst.]
Bullock: For threatening a Peace Officer, I'm taking you into custody.
Hearst: Don't be stupid, Bullock...
Bullock: Don't YOU be fucking stupid!
[Bullock grabs Hearst by the ear and drags him out of the Bella Union. His rage seething, he snarls into Hearst's ear:]
Bullock: Fuck...you!

Hearst: Accepting your premise, Mr. Swearengen, I'll not name how you would benefit from the action I wish you to take, saying only instead it's my will. To which I will have you bend.

Hearst: Have the gold seen to [Alma's] bank, Newman. Have its purity assayed. Let her or her seconds choose the man. When that tedium is completed, have the documents witnessed as though we were all of us Jews. And bring the business back to me. [turns to leave] Excuse my absence, Mr. Star, as I hope you'll forgive my thoughtless aspersion on your race. [Sol nods.] You stand for local office, but some contests being countywide, I await wires from the other camps. [holds the door open and Alma turns to leave. Hearst sniffs as she passes by.] You've changed your scent.
Seth Bullock: Can't shut up! Every bully I ever met can't shut his fuckin' mouth... except when he's afraid.
Hearst: You mistake for fear, Mr. Bullock, what is in fact preoccupation. I'm having a conversation you cannot hear.

Hearst: I hate these places, Odell, because the truth that I know, the promise that I bring, the necessities I'm prepared to accept make me outcast. Isn't that foolish? Isn't that foolishness? An old man disabused long ago of certain yearnings and hopes as to how he would be held by his fellows, and yet I weep.

Hearst: I oughtn't to work in these places. I was not born to crush my own kind.

Hearst: This place displeases me. I'm taking measures to bring it down.

Hearst: To labor without pleasure makes us our destiny's slaves.
Swearengen: To work for crumbs or to keep from the lash says maybe a slave's what you are.

Hearst: You will not mistake the newspaper man: he looks like a... big turtle.