- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: My daddy was killed tryin' to keep slavery outta Kansas.
- Oswald Dart: How'd he do that, sir?
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: Well, my daddy hated slavery with such a passion, that rather than let the coloreds get in to becomin' slaves, he just fought to keep 'em all out of the state.
- William Halsey: Great Father, Sitting Bull has waited to ask you a very simple thing for his people.
- President Grover Cleveland: Mr. Halsey, I remind you that in government, nothing is simple.
- [explaining why Sitting Bull should be in Buffalo Bill's show]
- Ned Buntline: A rock ain't a rock once it becomes gravel.
- Ned Buntline: Injuns gear their lives to dreams. And what an Injun dreams, no matter how farfetched, will wait until he dies to come true. The white men - they're different. The only time they dream is when things are going their way. I'm no expert on the subject, but it seems to me that what Sitting Bull does is a hell of a lot cheaper than mounting a Wild West Show - which is dreaming out loud.
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: Tell me what you got on your mind.
- William Halsey: [Speaking for Sitting Bull] Sitting Bull has said that he is here by the will of the Great Spirit, and by their will he is chief. His heart is red and sweet. Whatever passes near tries to lick him with its tongue, and the bears taste the honey, and the green leaves lick the sky. If the Great Spirit has chosen anyone to be leader of their land, it is Sitting Bull.
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: Halsey, you tell Sitting Bull that Buffalo Bill says his leaves can turn whichever way he wants as long as he knows which way the wind is blowing.
- [Sits down. To his advisors]
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: I give him back the same kind of murky logic that he gave us. Whatya think, um?
- President Grover Cleveland: Where will you sleep, Buffalo Bill?
- Ed Goodman: You can sleep with me, Uncle Will.
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: No, Ed, I will sleep out on the prairie underneath the moon and listen to the lullaby of the coyotes. You see, I ain't always been a comfortable man.
- President Grover Cleveland: You know, it's a man like that that made this country what it is today!
- Maj. John M. Burke: Don't worry about how you feel about where you ought to be... just come on over here where you should be.
- Ned Buntline: Bill, any youngster like yourself who figures to set the world on fire best not forget where he got the matches.
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: Remember, son, the last thing that a man wants to do is the last thing he does.
- Nate Salisbury: I'm the only partner Bill Cody ever had who tells him the truth. And in the end, we always agree.
- Ned Buntline: I was taught that when two partners always agree, one of them ain't necessary.
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: Where were ya?
- William Halsey: It's the first of the moon.
- Nate Salisbury: That's not what Buffalo Bill asked ya! Now where in the hell have you been?
- William Halsey: During the first day of the first moon, Sitting Bull visits the sun in the mountains while his squaws move the teepees to the moon path.
- Nate Salisbury: Damn it, Halsey! Stop sunning and mooning us! Now where the hell have you been?
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: The difference between a white man and an injun in all situations is that an injun is red. And an injun is red for a very good reason. So we can tell us apart! We can tell us apart.
- Crutch: Come here, Mr. Buntline! Come over here and look at Sitting Bull! The son-of-a-bitch must be seven feet tall!
- Ned Buntline: He's getting smaller every year.
- Ned Buntline: I bring up this dream business because, well, because things are beginning to take on an unreal shape. Now I was thinking about Sitting Bull. Just put yourself in that Injun's place. You sit in your tepee and dream. And then yu go to wherever the dream may take you... it might come true. And you wait for real life to catch up.
- Crutch: So, Sitting Bull's the little fella, hanh? He don't look so savage to me. I'm gonna sleep with a shotgun under my bed at night. You know, Sitting Bull's famous for scalping folks in their beds. I sure hope Bill can handle 'em.
- [to Sitting Bull's ghost]
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: My God, look at ya! Look at ya! You want to stay the same! Well, that's going backwards!
- Ed Goodman: It's a question of law and order, Annie. Uncle Will keeps the law - and Sitting Bull is out of order.
- Jules Keen: We know who it is, Ed.
- Ed Goodman: Who? Tell me.
- Jules Keen: Sitting Bull.
- Ed Goodman: Sittin' Bull?
- Jules Keen: Sitting Bull.
- Ed Goodman: Sittin' Bull? I didn't know he was interested in the show business.
- Jules Keen: If he wasn't interested in the show business, he wouldn't have become a chief, Ed.
- Ned Buntline: Nate and Bill are in the big time now. They can afford to spend fifty bucks a week. Now, tell me, what Injun villain do you know who's worth that amount? Sitting Bull.
- Ned Buntline: So, one morning, I'm wandering through the camp, and I spot this - this scrawny-lookin' kid, lyin' underneath the wagon. I drag him out, I take one look at him, and I know I can make him a star. I ask him, "What's your name?" He says, "Cody, Bill Cody." I say, "What do you do?" He says, "I'm a scout and a buffalo hunter." Well, I'm really gonna write about somebody, because I got a batch of exciting new plots I might take to Hickok, except I'm mad at him. So I say to the kid, "From now on, your name is Buffalo Bill, and in six months, the whole damn country's gonna know about you."
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: Me and my staff are simply the best at what we do. And what we do is to make the best look better.
- Nate Salisbury: Here's the man you've all been waiting for, the man whose place in history, and solid character, has made him popular throughout the continent! Ladies and gentlemen, the one, the only, America's national entertainer. Let's put one all together now for William F. Cody, Buffalo Bill!
- Ned Buntline: Times are bad and gettin' worse. That's when the show business flourishes, when times are bad.
- Maj. John M. Burke: Gentlemen! In this moment, fraught with friendship, with history humming harmonic overtones, Bill, I have the distinct pleasure of presenting Chief Sitting Bull. Chief, it gives me pleasure to present to you the Honorable William F. Cody, Buffalo Bill!
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: Well, I would just like to take this occasion to congratulate you on your safe journey, and to extend a titanically momentous welcome to Buffalo Bill's Wild West.
- Nate Salisbury: Did Burke promise you that?
- William Halsey: Sitting Bull no longer accepts promises from white men. His dreams told him that this is the place he would meet the Great Father.
- Nate Salisbury: Sitting Bull is here because he dreamed he'd meet President Cleveland?
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: Well, what does she have to say this time?
- Ed Goodman: [reading a letter] "Dear husband, your deeds as a frontier hero are pale compared to your adventures with opera singers and milk maids."
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: I ain't gonna put up with it! You ain't gonna put up. *We* ain't gonna put up with it! It's bedlam in here. I can't think. I'm gonna lie down and take a nap.
- William Halsey: He will own his own photographs.
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: Hell he will! I got all photographic rights and historics!
- William Halsey: Sitting Bull says a man may never let go of his face. Therefore, he will own his own photographs.
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: My ass!
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: [waking up] What the hell are you doin' here?
- William Halsey: Sitting Bull has come to tell you what he will do in your show.
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: Show? God, the sun ain't hardly up yet!
- William Halsey: Sitting Bull's thoughts do not have a time schedule.
- William Halsey: My father has promised me this land, and, in protecting it, I have had a hard time. The rivers flow with the blood of my people. The wind blows the echoes of lies. The white man has stolen the truth.
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: Bull's gonna suffer a worse defeat than Custer ever did. Custer could die. Bull's just gonna get humiliated.
- Ned Buntline: Yes, he was truly born to entertain. No ordinary man woulda had the foresight to take credit for acts of bravery and heroism that he couldn'ta done. And no ordinary man could realize what tremendous profits could be made by tellin' a pack of lies, in front of witnesses, like it was the truth. No, Bill Cody could only trust his senses. And when his senses fail him, he might just see things as they really are.
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: [to Lucille DuCharme] Morning! You're up. Listen, I, eh, I'm really sorry about last night. It was the first show of the season, and the boys like to kick up a little dust. I don't like to have them drink alone. I must have been kind of a disappointment. You look awful pretty in that light. Actually, eh, I've become something of a morning man. Now, there's no pressure. You see, at night - and the whisky we get here is, eh, kinda dulls the...
- William Halsey: This simple request will satisfy Sitting Bull's people for the length of time, Great Father.
- President Grover Cleveland: Let me point out that I'm "Great Father" for only four years at a time.
- Ned Buntline: You ain't changed, Bill.
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: I ain't supposed to. That's why people pay to see me.
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: I'm curious, Chief. My friends are curious. My women are curious. My fans are curious. And they pay me for it. I give 'em what they expect. You can't live up to what you expect. And that makes you more make-believe than me, 'cause you don't even know if you're bluffin'!
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: Bull! Bull! Damn you! You see, in a hundred years, I'm still gonna be Buffalo Bill, star! And you're gonna be the Injun. My God, look at you. Look at you. You wanna stay the same. Well, that's goin' backwards!
- McLaughlin: I'm ready to dispose of my prisoner.
- Maj. John M. Burke: Sweet McLaughlin, you are now in Codyland. Sitting Bull is no longer your prisoner, but a star in the Buffalo Bill heavens.
- McLaughlin: As far as I'm concerned, he's a murderer.
- Nate Salisbury: You know, when I was traveling with the troubadours, there were times when I was asked to be a colored. Now, do I look like a colored?
- Whip & Fast Draw Act: Oh, no, no, sir.
- Nate Salisbury: But when I had to play a colored, I was a colored. I thought a colored, I drank a colored, I walked a colored. I was a colored.
- Nate Salisbury: History, real history, is hard come. And the man I'm about to celebrate is not a mere personation of a patriot, but the true monarch of genuity. Scout, showman, family person, valued partner, America's national entertainer.
- Ned Buntline: What a fine citizen you're makin' out of Bill. Why, it don't even seem like the same man anymore. Never gets into trouble. Never looks bad in public.
- Nate Salisbury: All I care about is the Wild West. I'm going to Codyfy the world.
- Nate Salisbury: That's my star.
- Maj. John M. Burke: He belongs to all of us, Nate.
- Nate Salisbury: Our star.
- Maj. John M. Burke: America's.
- Ned Buntline: Well, I'll be Goddamned if it ain't Nervous Nate.
- Nate Salisbury: Buntline, you're not doing anybody a favor by being here.
- Ned Buntline: I ain't in the favor business, Nate.
- William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody: I'm smart enough to know that the difference between a white man and an Injun, in a situation like this, is us whites are smart enough to know that an Injun always turns down your first offer.