- Ned Quimbo: You know who that is, don't you?
- Deedricks: Who?
- Ned Quimbo: Custer.
- Deedricks: Who?
- Ned Quimbo: George Armstrong Custer. The Boy General. Ex-general. Once known as the Prince of Cavaliers, now doing penance at Fort Hays commanding the dregs of the dregs of the U.S. Cavalry.
- Ned Quimbo: Mighty few men become legends in their own lifetime. And what made them legends wasn't their own spectacular deeds. No, sir, it was the pen of men like yours truly that engraved their names in the affections of their countrymen.
- Ned Quimbo: Perhaps you need someone like me to tell the world the truth about you? Or what you would like them to consider to be the truth?
- Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer: You do me too much honor, Mr. Quimbo. If you really wish to write about a man who is a living legend, may I suggest you seek the acquaintance of Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux?
- Nora Moffett: Do you hold all your enemies in such high regard, Colonel?
- Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer: As a good Christian, I always turn the other cheek, but not my back.
- Nora Moffett: Isn't it a pity that so little of your Christian generosity was in evidence when you were fighting us.
- Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer: You lost your husband in the war. You have my sympathy. Perhaps for such losses we should blame war itself, not the color of the uniform.
- Uvalde: Colonel, you ain't in charge of this fort now. Your brass don't mean nothing around here now.
- Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer: I think somebody should be in command.
- Uvalde: Not you.
- Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer: I suspect I'm qualified. If you want to challenge that, you better do it right here and now. Guns or fists. Any way you want it.
- Ned Quimbo: Sir, if I get out of this alive...
- Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer: I know. You'll make mention of me in your writings in the most generous of terms.
- Ned Quimbo: Generous? I shall make you immortal.
- [Custer chuckles abashedly]
- Ned Quimbo: Why do you smile? Can you truly be unaware that the hand that holds the pen is the hand that rules the world?
- Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer: I've been made only too painfully aware of that, Mr. Quimbo, on more than one occasion.
- Ned Quimbo: I always thought to a redskin life was cheaper than dirt.
- Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer: You shouldn't believe everything you write, Mr. Quimbo. The Sioux is a deadly fighter, but he loves life as much as you or I. But it isn't maintained at the expense of honor.
- Ned Quimbo: Honor? Among savages?
- Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer: Perhaps we could do with a little more of that honor ourselves.
- [last lines]
- Nora Moffett: I am very happy to have had the opportunity to have known you, Colonel Custer.
- Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer: My privilege to know you, ma'am.
- Nora Moffett: However, there is something that needs to be said. I have reason to like you, respect you, but you still stand for everything I hate: War and brutal senseless killing. Everything that you men call glory.
- Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer: I can't deny that, Mrs. Moffett. But I heard a great man once say, "As much as I respect your opinion, I respect my duty more."
- Nora Moffett: One of your Yankee heroes, Colonel Custer?
- Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer: No, madam, that was General Robert E. Lee.