On the run after murdering a man, accountant William Blake encounters a strange North American man named Nobody who prepares him for his journey into the spiritual world.

Nobody: Every night and every morn, some to misery are born. Every morn and every night, some are born to sweet delight. Some are born to sweet delight; some are born to endless night.
Nobody: The vision of Christ that thou dost see, is my vision's greatest enemy.
[first lines]
Train Fireman: Look out the window. And doesn't this remind you of when you were in the boat, and then later than night, you were lying, looking up at the ceiling, and the water in your head was not dissimilar from the landscape, and you think to yourself, "Why is it that the landscape is moving, but the boat is still?"
William Blake: What is your name?
Nobody: My name is Nobody.
William Blake: Excuse me?
Nobody: My name is Exaybachay. He Who Talks Loud, Saying Nothing.
William Blake: He who talks... I thought you said your name was Nobody.
Nobody: I preferred to be called Nobody.
[last lines]
[Nobody has put wounded William Blake in a canoe, and is about to push him out to sea]
William Blake: Hello.
Nobody: I prepared your canoe with cedarboughs. It's time for you to leave now, William Blake. Time for you to go back where you came from.
William Blake: You mean Cleveland?
Nobody: Back to the place where all the spirits came from, and where all the spirits return. This world will no longer concern you.
William Blake: [shows Nobody a reel of tobacco] Found some tobacco.
Nobody: That tobacco is for your voyage... William Blake.
William Blake: Nobody... I don't smoke.
[pushes William Blake's canoe out. He waves and says goodbye to Blake in a different language]
William Blake: [watches from the canoe as Cole Wilson sneaks up behind Nobody. The two shoot each other to death. As William drifts further out, he falls in a deep forever-lasting sleep]
Nobody: The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn from the crow.
William Blake: If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.
William Blake: Do you still have my eyeglasses?
Nobody: No, I traded them. Do you have any tobacco?
William Blake: No, I traded it.
Nobody: For what?
William Blake: I'm not telling.
Nobody: Liar.
William Blake: Thief.
Marvin (Older Marshall): You William Blake?
William Blake: Yes, I am. Do you know my poetry?
Nobody: I was then taken east, in a cage. I was taken to Toronto. Then Philadelphia. And then to New York. And each time I arrived at another city, somehow the white men had moved all their people there ahead of me. Each new city contained the same white people as the last, and I could not understand how a whole city of people could be moved so quickly.
Nobody: That weapon will replace your tongue. You will learn to speak through it. And your poetry will now be written with blood.
[William has just discovered a colt in Thel's bed]
Thel Russell: Watch it. It's loaded.
William Blake: Why do you have this?
Thel Russell: Because this is America.
[Waking Blake up in the morning]
Nobody: Don't let the sun burn a hole in your ass, William Blake. Rise now, and drive your cart and plough over the bones of the dead!
Nobody: [seeing William touching his chest wound] Leave that alone stupid white man.
William Blake: [as Nobody grints and attends to his wound] Am I going to die?
Nobody: The circle of life has no ending.
[Hr grunts as he attends him]
William Blake: Why are you helping me?
Nobody: A bird told me.
William Blake: A bird told you?
Nobody: A small magical bird with bright blue feathers
[He pauses]
Nobody: I was following him in your forest, hoping to acquire one of his indigo feathers... and then I lost him... and then I found him again. He was perched on your chest tasting your blood. He looked at me. Then he flew directly west in a straight line - his small beak red with your blood.
Conway Twill: [talking about Cole] Fucked his parents.
Johnny 'The Kid' Pickett: He what ?
Conway Twill: He fucked his parents.
Johnny 'The Kid' Pickett: Both of 'em ?
Conway Twill: Yeah. Mother. Father. Parents. Both of 'em. Fucked 'em.
Nobody: Stupid fucking white man.
Conway Twill: Jesus, Cole, he's just a kid.
Cole Wilson: Now he's a Navajo mud toy.
Benmont Tench: Who are you travelin' with?
William Blake: Uhm... Nobody.
Nobody: What name were you given at birth, stupid white man?
Train Fireman: I'll tell you one thing for sure... I wouldn't trust no words written down on no piece of paper, especially from no Dickinson out in the town of Machine... you're just as likely to find your own grave.
Nobody: It is strange that you do not remember any of your poetry, William Blake.
Nobody: Things which are alike, in nature, grow to look alike.
Big George: What's a Philistine?
Sally: Well, it's just a real dirty person.
Big George: I don't give a shit who saw what, and who did what, or who did who.
Trading Post missionary: God damn your soul to the fires of Hell!
William Blake: He already has.
Nobody: You are being followed, William Blake.
William Blake: Are you sure? How do you know?
Nobody: Often the evil stench of white man precedes him.
Big George: You know I just, I can't drink whiskey like I usetacould. My old belly just ain't no count. I get the shits every time don't you know.
William Blake: I came here to talk about my job.
John Dickinson: The only job you're goin' to get is pushing up daisies from a pine box.
Train Fireman: That doesn't explain why you've come all the way out here... all the way out here to hell.
[Cole Wilson, Conway Twill and Johnny 'The Kid' Pickett are sitting at John Dickinson's desk]
Conway Twill: Hey Wilson, got any extra tobacco?
[Cole looks at him and says nothing]
Conway Twill: Uh. Of course, you wouldn't have any 'extra' tobacco. How 'bout you?
[Johnny also looks at him and says nothing]
Conway Twill: Shit. You ain't even old enough to smoke.
Big George: Well Sally, I don't give a pig's ass what anybody says, I still say you make a hell of a pot of beans.
William Blake: I... smell... beans...
Nobody: Did you kill the white man who killed you?
William Blake: I'm not dead. Am I?
Conway Twill: 'Course you can't put much stock in a man who spends the most part of a conversation talkin' to a bear... talkin' to a goddamn bear.
Conway Twill: I'll tell you one thing: if that there Blake fella keeps on shootin' marshals, I might end up liking the bastard!
Big George: By God, I'm hit. Lord have mercy. Burns like hellfire. You son of a bitch. I'm gonna have to kill somebody now.
Big George: That's terrible.
Sally: It's horrible.
Big George: Terrible is what it is.
[Pickett is going to drink from a pool, turning his back on Wilson in the process]
Cole Wilson: Don't do that.
Johnny 'The Kid' Pickett: Why not?
Cole Wilson: It's bad for your health...
Nobody: You were a poet and a painter, William Blake. But now, you're a killer of white men.
Train Fireman: Look... they are shooting buffalo, government says... it killed a million of 'em last year alone.
Cole Wilson: [seeing a dead marshal's head lying on a woodpile] Looks like a goddamn religious icon!