Stagecoach West (TV Series)

Image of a Man (1961)

Wayne Rogers: Luke Perry

Quotes 

• Ethan Blount : I work for Henchard because I work for him. It's that simple.

  Luke Perry : Well, maybe to you it's simple, but not to me. A man who's done what you've done for a town, who thinks the way you do, who believes in things like you - he just doesn't suddenly throw that all away and go against his principles unless another man breaks him down.

  Ethan Blount : You're young, Luke. That's why you can see things so clear - but you're wrong. Something else can break a man down, stronger even than Henchard.

  Luke Perry : What else is there?

  Ethan Blount : Life, pain, loss, hurt... the slow, sick poison of existence.

• [picking up a Ethan's Bible] 

  Luke Perry : I didn't know you were a religious man, Ethan.

  Ethan Blount : Oh? I'm not a church-going man.

  Luke Perry : I didn't say chuch-going... I said religious.

  Ethan Blount : Well, I am religious but it's a pretty poor sort of religion.

  Luke Perry : Well, it doesn't look that way to me - not by the way this book is worn.

• Ethan Blount : All right, so I read my Bible.

  Luke Perry : You do more than read. You got this passage marked up and underlined. Tell me, Ethan, why did you underline this?

  Ethan Blount : What?

  Luke Perry : "Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out and I, if I be lifted up, will draw men under me."

  Ethan Blount : I don't know why I underlined it. Perhaps because I like it or because it held a meaning for me once. Whatever it was, I've forgotten.

  Luke Perry : Strange, you know for a minute it a meaning for me.

  Ethan Blount : What did it mean to you, Luke?

  Luke Perry : Well, I know this sound foolish. I'm no Bible student or anything, but...

  Ethan Blount : Go ahead.

  Luke Perry : I was just thinkin'. Sometimes maybe a man has to be lifted up before other men and suffer where they can see him and can't turn away until they know what good it and what evil is. Maybe unless one man is willing to be lifted up and go through all of this maybe other men will never understand.

  Ethan Blount : There's only one thing, Luke. The man you;re talking about was the Son of God. Only God has such strength.

  Luke Perry : At that time, he was a man, wasn't he?