A group of 1950s high schoolers come of age in a bleak, isolated, atrophied West Texas town that is slowly dying, both economically and culturally.

[last lines]
Ruth Popper: Never you mind, honey. Never you mind.
Sam the Lion: [to Genevieve] Chicken fry me a steak and try to use meat this time!
Jacy Farrow: [to Lester Marlow] Thank God, I'm glad I weren't on fire - I would've burned to death before you got one button undone.
Sam the Lion: If she was here I'd probably be just as crazy now as I was then in about 5 minutes. Ain't that ridiculous?... Naw, it ain't really. 'Cause being crazy about a woman like her is always the right thing to do. Being an old decrepit bag of bones, that's what's ridiculous. Gettin' old.
[Telephone Conversation]
Abilene: Hello.
Lois Farrow: Abilene, you asleep?
Abilene: No.
Lois Farrow: You like company?
Abilene: Well, I thought I'd drive out, see how my well was coming.
Lois Farrow: Drill hard. You're better at oil wells anyway.
Jacy Farrow: Well you married Daddy when he was poor and he got rich, didn't he?
Lois Farrow: Scared your daddy into getting rich, beautiful.
Jacy Farrow: Well if Daddy could do it, Duane could too.
Lois Farrow: Not married to you. You're not scary enough.
Sam the Lion: You boys can get on out of here, I don't want to have no more to do with you. Scarin' a poor, unfortunate creature like Billy just so's you could have a few laughs - I've been around that trashy behavior all my life, I'm gettin' tired of puttin' up with it. Now you can stay out of this pool hall, out of my cafe, and my picture show too - I don't want no more of your business.
Lois Farrow: I guess if it wasn't for Sam, I'd have missed it, whatever it is. I'd have been one of them amity types that thinks that playin' bridge is about the best thing that life has to offer.
Sam the Lion: Bein' crazy about a woman like that is always the right thing to do!
Ruth Popper: Y'see? You shouldn't have come here. I'm around that corner now. You've ruined it and it's lost completely. Just your needing me won't make it come back.
Charlene Duggs: [In a snit over breaking up] Now don't go tellin' all the boys how hot I was.
Sonny Crawford: [Sadly] You wasn't that hot.
[Telephone Conversation]
Duane Jackson: Hi Jacy, it's Duane.
Jacy Farrow: What's on your feeble mind Duane?
Genevieve: One thing I know for sure. A person can't sneeze in this town without somebody offering them a handkerchief.
Sonny Crawford: Nothin's really been right since Sam the Lion died.
Coach Popper: [to his team taking laps] If you all didn't jack off too much, maybe you'd stay in shape.
Sonny Crawford: Say, I hear Duane joined the Army.
Genevieve: Good place for him too.
Sonny Crawford: Oh, he was just holding that bottle. He didn't mean to hit me with it.
Genevieve: That boy always had meaness in him. Of course, Jacy's just the kind of girl that brings out the meaness in a man. She's just like her grandmother. Oh, I hadn't ought to talk about them, anyhow. We was all good friends once. Dan roughnecked with Gene Farrow. He and Lois, they used to live in this little one-room place over the newspaper office. Lois couldn't afford a flour sack, much less a mink. I've always had a soft spot for her, though. Yeah, I wondered a lot of times what would've happened if Dan made the strikes that Gene made. They offered that rig to him first. Dan Morgan never took a chance in his life.
Sonny Crawford: Don't you wish y'all had made it?
Genevieve: Sure, I wish we made it.
Duane Jackson: I'll see you in a year or two if I don't get shot.
Sonny Crawford: [to the unsympathetic crowd around Billy's body] He was sweeping you sons of bitches, he was sweeping!
Jacy Farrow: [to Duane, as they're leaving motel room after having sex] Oh, quit prissing. I don't think you done it right, anyway.
Sam the Lion: You see? This is what I get for bettin' on my own home town ballteam. I ought'a have better sense.
Abilene: Wouldn't hurt to have a better home town.
[first lines]
Radio announcer: President Truman'll be here tomorrow, so all you folks in Dallas turn out, chuh hear? This is Cowboy Rhythms on KTRN, Wichita Falls, here's Hank Williams' big hit tune, "Cold Cold Heart".
Sam the Lion: You ain't ever gonna amount to nothing. Already spent a dime this morning, ain't even had a decent breakfast. Gimme the chalk. Why don't you comb you hair Sonny, it sticks up, look like you smelled'm wolf. I'm surprised you had the nerve to show up this morning after that stomping y'all took last night.