Buffalo Bill Quotes

You who live your lives in cities or among peaceful ways cannot always tell whether your friends are the kind who would go through fire for you. But on the Plains one's friends have an opportunity to prove their mettle.

My restless, roaming spirit would not allow me to remain at home very long.

Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government.

The cholera had broken out at the post, and five or six men were dying daily.

I could never resist the call of the trail.

Don't ever say you are sorry for "being caught in the moment". Because, at that moment, that is EXACTLY where you wanted to be.

The Indians said the bones were those of a race of people ... three times the size of a man.

My great forte in killing buffaloes was to get them circling by riding my horse at the head of the herd and shooting their leaders. Thus the brutes behind were crowded to the left, so that they were soon going round and round.

But the West of the old times, with its strong characters, its stern battles and its tremendous stretches of loneliness, can never be blotted from my mind.

As a good horse is not very apt to jump over a bank, if left to guide himself, I let mine pick his own way.

I felt only as a man can feel who is roaming over the prairies of the far West, well armed, and mounted on a fleet and gallant steed.

The greatest of all the Sioux in my time, or in any time for that matter, was that wonderful old fighting man, Sitting Bull, whose life will some day be written by a historian who can really give him his due.

If Wild Bill could have made his successful dash into our lines earlier in the day, the attuck would have been made sooner, and greater results might have been expected. The Confederates had suspected him of being a spy for two or three days, and had watched him too closely to allow an opportunity to get away from them sooner.

The Indians kept increasing in numbers until it was estimated that we were fighting from 800 to 1,000 of them.

My debut upon the world's stage occurred on February 26th, 1845.

The Indians were well mounted and felt proud and elated because they had been made United States soldiers.

Stations were built at intervals averaging fifteen miles apart. A rider's route covered three stations, with an exchange of horses at each, so that he was expected at the beginning to cover close to forty-five miles - a good ride when one must average fifteen miles an hour.

It was because of my great interest in the West, and my belief that its development would be assisted by the interest I could awaken in others, that I decided to bring the West to the East through the medium of the Wild West Show.

I thought I was benefiting the Indians as well as the government, by taking them all over the United States, and giving them a correct idea of the customs, life, etc., of the pale faces, so that when they returned to their people they could make known all they had seen.

I had many enemies among the Sioux; I would be running considerable risk in meeting them.

I had the best buffalo horse that ever made a track.

Frontiersmen good and bad, gunmen as well as inspired prophets of the future, have been my camp companions. Thus, I know the country of which I am about to write as few men now living have known it.

I was persuaded now that I was destined to lead a life on the Plains.

But the love of adventure was in father's blood.

The McCarthy boys, at the proper moment, gave orders to fire upon the advancing enemy.

Well, Bill [Bill Hickok] was a pretty good shot. But he could not shoot as quick as half a dozen men we all knew in those days, nor as straight either. But Bill was cool, and the men who he went up against were rattled, I guess. Bill beat them to it. He made up his mind to kill the other man before the other man had finished thinking.

We got more provisions for our whiskey than the same money, which we paid for the liquor, would have bought; so after all it proved a very profitable investment.

Some days I would go without any fire at all, and eat raw frozen meat and melt snow in my mouth for water.

The first presentation of my show was given in May, 1883, at Omaha, which I had then chosen as my home. From there we made our first summer tour, visiting practically every important city in the country.

It was my effort, in depicting the West, to depict it as it was.

Quick as lightning Wild Bill pulled his revolver. The stranger fell dead, shot through the brain.

My brother was a great favorite with everybody, and his death cast a gloom upon the whole neighborhood.

Excitement was plentiful during my two years' service as a Pony Express rider.

Major North and myself went out in advance of the command several miles and killed a number of buffaloes.

Having secured my Indian actors, I started for Baltimore, where I organized my combination, and which was the largest troupe I had yet had on the road.

I found Spotted Tail's lodge. He invited me to enter.

My first plan of escape having failed, I now determined upon another.

Wild Bill was a strange character. In person he was about six feet and one inch in height. He was a Plains-man in every sense of the word.

After crossing the Smoky Hill River, I felt comparatively safe as this was the last stream I had to cross.

On reaching the place where the Indians had surprised us, we found the bodies of the three men whom they had killed and scalped, and literally cut into pieces.

The Free State men, myself among them, took it for granted that Missouri was a slave state.

We had avoided discovery by the Sioux scouts, and we were confident of giving them a complete surprise.

Wild Bill was anything but a quarrelsome man yet I have personal knowledge of at least half a dozen men whom he had at various times killed.

With the help of a friend I got father into a wagon, when the crowd had gone. I held his head in my lap during the ride home. I believed he was mortally wounded. He had been stabbed down through the kidneys, leaving an ugly wound.

The first trip of the Pony Express was made in ten days - an average of two hundred miles a day. But we soon began stretching our riders and making better time.

Washington newspaper men know everything.

I began to think that my time had come, as the saying is.

General Custer was a close observer and student of personal character.

Indians were frequently off their reservations.

My wife was delighted with the home I had given her amid the prairies of the far west.