Unforgiven Quotes
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Source: Unforgiven
Speaker: William Munny
"It's a hell of a thing killing a man."
The Schofield Kid: It don't seem real. How he ain't gonna never breathe again, ever. How he's dead. And the other one, too. All on account of pulling a trigger.
William Munny: It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have.
The Schofield Kid: Yeah, well, I guess they had it coming.
William Munny: We all have it coming, Kid.
Context
This line is spoken by William Munny, played by Clint Eastwood, in the film Unforgiven, directed by Clint Eastwood (1992).
We've nearly come to the end of the movie and the Schofield Kid has done what he set out to do—he killed the two jerks who disfigured a prostitute and now it's time to claim some reward money. But it's not all that simple. Seems the Kid is feeling kind of awful about killing a man. He's never done it before, and it's not as easy as it looks. Killing never is.
William Munny has killed his fair share of people, but has lost his taste for it, and tells the Kid that ending a man's life is actually pretty rotten. You've taken everything from him and he can never get it back. You can't un-dead someone once they're dead. It's pretty darn final.
Unless they come back as a zombie.
Where you've heard it
This is the kind of thing you say to someone if they're a little upset about the murder they've just committed. Let's hope you've never heard this one.
Pretentious Factor
If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.
Clint Eastwood is the exact opposite of pretentious. Give this quote a little rugged cowboy charm and you're in business.