Cold Mountain (2003)

Renée Zellweger: Ruby Thewes

Photos 

Quotes 

• Ruby : Every piece of this is man's bullshit. They call this war "a cloud over the land" but they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say "Shit, it's rainin'!"

• Ada : I can talk about farming in Latin. I can read French. I can lace up a corset, God knows. I can name the principal rivers in Europe, just don't ask me to name one stream in this county! I can embroider but I can't darn! I can arrange cut flowers but I can't grow them! If a thing has a function, if I might *do* something with it, then it wasn't considered suitable!

  Ruby : ...Why?

  Ada : Ruby, you can ask 'why' about pretty much everything to do with me! This fence is about the first thing that I've ever done that might produce an actual result.

• [Ruby has just walked in on Inman and Ada talking by the campfire] 

  Ruby : Number one - shut this door, it's freezing. Number two - shut that door, it's freezing. I'm laying on my back, with my fingers poked in my ears trying to shut out who's got a bag of diamonds and who's carrying a tray. If you want to get three feet up a bull's ass, listen to what sweethearts whisper to each other. Now, if you're going to wimble wimble all night, I'm going to sleep in with him.

  [she stomps into her father's hut] 

• Ruby : [about her father]  Oh, he's so full of manure, that man! We could lay him in the dirt and grow another one just like him.

• Ruby : [On discussing the war's origin]  Every piece of this is man's bullshit. They call this war a cloud over the land. But they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say 'Shit, it's raining!'

• Ruby : If I cry one tear for my daddy I stole it off a crocodile.

• Ruby : My daddy, he could play six tunes on a fiddle. Got hisself shot dead at Petersburg. I was like his goat, or some critter tethered to a post. He left me once. Up in them mountains, I was eight, he was gone over two and a half weeks.

  Ada : He left you?

  Ruby : Uh-huh, I was all right, My daddy, he'd walk 40 miles for liquor and not 40 inches for kindness.

• Ruby : This world won't stand long! God won't let it stand - this way long.

• Ruby : Let's put him in a pot.

• Ruby : We got something for you.

  Ada : For all your kindness. Coffee and pie.

  Ruby : That's real coffee. It ain't chicory and dirt.

  Sally : Thank you both. Ruby, I look forward to this. We all do. Esco and me.

  Ruby : [grinning at Ada]  She made it.

  Ada : I made it.

  Sally : Good God in Heaven.

  Ruby : I'm still livin'.

• Ruby : I despise a floggin' rooster.

• Ruby : Unbelieveable. Stobrod Thewes!

  Stobrod : Ruby?

  [Ruby runs up to him and kicks him, then turns to Ada] 

  Ruby : That's my daddy!

  [storms off] 

• Ruby : [to her father]  Just so you know - you're not eating inside. Number one: they hang people round here for taking in deserters. Number two: even if they gave out prizes you'd still eat outside.

• Ruby : Ain't no man better than me. On account of there's no man around here that ain't old, or full o' mischief.

• Ruby : I hope that Georgia boy's been seeing to the animals.

  Ada : I thought you were thinking on him!

  Ruby : I was not. I was thinking on swollen udders- and before you say same difference.

  Ada : I'm not saying nothing!

  Ruby : Miss lovey-dovey!

• Ruby : [yelling]  Ada? Ada? You up?

  Ada : Yes. It's still dark.

  Ruby : Tell that to the cows. It's late!

• Ruby : [when Ada comes back with Inman]  Congratulations. I'll send you out with a shot gun a lot more.

• Stobrod : I wrote several tunes with you in mind - Ruby this, Ruby that, Ruby with the eyes that sparkle.

  Ruby : Hey, let's agree. You beat me, you abandoned me, you ignored me, and yet you beat me some more. And all that's better than Ruby with eyes that sparkle.

• Ruby : [to Ada]  So, you have never wrapped your legs around this Inman?

  [Ada hits her] 

• Ruby : Have you been shot?

  Inman : Not lately.

• Ada : I have to eat something.

  Ruby : Then you have to wake up earlier. What's that?

  Ada : A novel.

  Ruby : You want to carry a book, carry one you can write in.

• Ruby : I know your plight.

  Ada : My plight?

  Ruby : Am I hard to hear? 'Cause you keep repeatin' everything.

• Ruby : [to Ada]  We got our own story. Called Black Cove Farm: a catastrophe. I can spell it, too. Learned it the same place you did, in the school room. One of the first words they taught me. "Ruby Thewes, you are a c-a-t-a-s-t-r-o-p-h-e!"

• Ruby : What kind of name's Georgia?

  Ada : It's where he's from, it's not his name.

  Ruby : I know that's meant to be the ugliest state under the heavens.

  Ada : What do you care what his name is?

• Ruby : Old lady Swanger says you need help. Here I am.

• Ruby : I ain't lookin' for money. I never cared for it and now it ain't worth nothin'.

• Ruby : I expect to board and eat at the same table. I ain't a servant, if you get my meanin'.

  Ada : You're not a servant.

  Ruby : People's gonna have to empty their own night jars is my point.

• Ruby : My name's Ruby Thewes. I know your name,

• Ruby : I cut off my hair once for money. My daddy got $ 2 for it. Made a wig for some rich feller in Raleigh. I'm just sayin' I'm real sorry you had to lose your piano,

• Stobrod : What about next Sunday? lt'll be New Year.

  Ruby : Maybe.

  Stobrod : Gonna be a better one - than 1864.

  Georgia : This war's over in a month.

  Ruby : That's what he said a month ago.

• Ruby : You're makin' a pig's ear of that job.

• Ruby : The sign says "Shoot me"