- [after Dan has made up with his parents]
- Dan Fielding: Hey listen, everybody, after work what say we go out and get some real food?
- Court Clerk MacIntosh 'Mac' Robinson: Real food?
- Dan Fielding: Yeah, I know this 24-hour Creole place over on Lexington. They got chicken feet.
- Bob Elmore: No!
- Dan Fielding: Yeah, I go there quite a lot.
- [off everyone's looks]
- Dan Fielding: Yes, I eat chicken feet. And I *like* it.
- Dan Fielding: [talking about his parents] Those people represent everything I have fought to get away from my entire life.
- Harry Stone: Dan, they can't be that bad.
- Dan Fielding: My God, Harry! They're *Democrats*!
- Harry Stone: ...I stand corrected.
- Harry Stone: I'll see you in my office, Counselor.
- Dan Fielding: Yes, sir.
- [Harry rises, and Dan follows him out. Billie starts to follow them, but Dan turns]
- Dan Fielding: I'd rather be raked over the coals alone, if you don't mind.
- Bob Elmore: The boy's right, judge. Anybody who sat on the same piece of land for forty-five years and never see it produce can't be the smartest man in the world, now can he? I never lost hope, did I, mother?
- Mucette Elmore: No, you didn't, Daddy Bob. You had more hope than anybody in the parish. Except for that young fellow at the filling station who tried to check his fuel tanks with a match...
- Dan Fielding: My father is a dirt farmer.
- Harry Stone: Dan, farming is noble...
- Dan Fielding: No crops, Harry, he farms *dirt*! Sure, maybe a few rocks now and again.
- Harry Stone: And I suppose he never tried to do any better?
- Dan Fielding: Yeah, sure he tried, and he always failed. Year after year after year, but nothing ever grew! That's not persistence, that's stupid.
- Harry Stone: Dan, it's true that I don't know everything about your father, but from what I do know, "stupid" is not a word I'd use to describe him! And I think you're a pompous ass for saying so!
- Dan Fielding: That may be! But it doesn't mean it isn't true.
- Harry Stone: Mr. and Mrs. Elmore, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to poke my nose into other people's business.
- Mucette Elmore: [smiling] That's a judge's job, isn't it?
- Harry Stone: I suppose it is.
- Bob Elmore: Now, you see, judge, what the boy did here, was right! He got out of that little two-bit town and made something out of himself. And we encouraged him all the way, didn't we boy?
- [Dan nods uncomfortably]
- Bob Elmore: We sold everything decent that we had to give him some pocket money for college. But he did all the rest hisself, with the scholarships, odd jobs, school...
- Dan Fielding: [Dan's co-workers bring him face-to with his bumpkin parents who come all the way to New York from their dirt farm to visit him]
- [With a look of stunned embarrasment]
- Dan Fielding: Thank God they left the livestock in the car.