Outlaw Heroes Quotes

“Etta gave Will a small, knowing smile. "Will, sometimes you have to love people for who they are, not who you want them to be.”
― Deanna Lynn Sletten, Outlaw Heroes

“Interesting how some words that hold basically the same meaning can have different connotations. Take ‘outlaw’ and ‘criminal’ for instance.
‘Outlaw’ has an almost romantic, nostalgic meaning – you tend to think of Jesse James or Robin Hood when you think of outlaws. Billy the Kid has been described as both a ‘notorious outlaw’ and a ‘beloved folk hero.’
‘Criminal’ however has a completely different connotation. We think of muggers, burglars, armed robbers etc.
Nobody really wants to have a ‘criminal’ in their family tree, but the idea of having ‘outlaw blood’ is exciting and glamorous”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“And you’ve spent your whole life wanting to be an outlaw,” James said. “And you wonder why I don’t listen to you.”
― Rich Hoffman, Tail of the Dragon

“They saluted the last wolves. Sure, they devoured property, but they did so with enthusiasm and panache. The animals had to die, but the humans felt nostalgic about their passing.”
― Jon T. Coleman, Vicious: Wolves and Men in America

“Actually, despite his earlier vow to one day raid Eastham, Clyde Barrow tried to go straight when he was paroled. He first helped his father make preparations to put an addition onto the service station, then traveled to Framingham, Massachusetts, to take a job and get away from his past in Texas. However, he quickly grew homesick and returned to Dallas to work for United Glass and Mirror, one of his former employers. It was then that local authorities began picking Barrow up almost daily, often taking him away from his job. There was a standing policy at the time to basically harass excons. Barrow was never charged with anything, but he soon lost his job. He told his mother, in the presence of Blanche Barrow and Ralph Fults, 'Mama, I'm never gonna work again. And I'll never stand arrest, either. I'm not ever going back to that Eastham hell hole. I'll die first! I swear it, they're gonna have to kill me.' ... Mrs. J. W. Hays, wife of former Dallas County Sheriff's Deputy John W. “Preacher” Hays, said, 'if the Dallas police had left that boy [Clyde Barrow] alone, we wouldn't be talking about him today.”
― John Neal Phillips, My Life with Bonnie and Clyde

“On Clyde inviting Buck to join him and Bonnie: [W.D.] Jones later said, 'He [Clyde] didn't mean to do Buck no harm. He just couldn't see that far ahead.' Of Blanche, he said 'She was a good little girl— good—hearted. She begged Buck not to go. She slipped into a trap. Blanche was just an innocent little girl who got mixed up in something—a love affair. I never knew that love could be so strong.”
― John Neal Phillips, My Life with Bonnie and Clyde

“Of her portrayal in the 1967 movie, Bonnie and Clyde, Blanche said, 'That movie made me out like a screaming horse's ass!' ... 'I was too busy moving bodies [to act hysterical],' Blanche herself said. ... Her image in this memoir, as well as in Fugitives and in Cumie Barrow's manuscript, was fashioned at a time when Blanche could have easily been charged with the Joplin murders. That may account for the great difference in tone Between Blanche, the young convict in Missouri State Penitentiary, and Blanche, the elder ex-fugitive. Indeed, at least one of Blanche Barrows' champions, Wilbur Winkler, the Deni— son man who co-owned (along with Artie Barrow Winkler) the Cinderella Beauty Shoppe, used Fugitives to try to obtain a parole for Blanche from the Missouri Board of Probation and Parole. In letters to the Platte County prosecutor and the judge involved in Blanche's case, Winkler alluded to the book's description of Blanche in Joplin in an effort to win their support for her release: 'Blanch [sic] ran hysterical [tic] thru [sit] the gunfire down the street carrying [her] dog in her arms,' Winkler wrote. He even sent copies of the book to them—and to others.”
― John Neal Phillips, My Life with Bonnie and Clyde

“[W.D.] Jones later commented that people frequently helped them, 'Not because it was Bonnie and Clyde. People in them days just helped—no questions asked.”
― John Neal Phillips, My Life with Bonnie and Clyde

“Just before she was allowed to go to Buck, Blanche was photographed at least three times by Herb Schwartz of the Des Moines Register. The location was about one quarter of a mile from where Buck and Blanche were apprehended. Blanche is being held by Sheriff Loren Forbes in all three shots. In two of the shots she is standing quietly, looking toward Buck, who is lying on the ground nearby with a group of armed men stooping over him. In the third shot, which has been widely published, Blanche is struggling with Forbes and looking directly at the camera, screaming dramatically. In his notes, Schwartz commented that Blanche, in her semiblind state, saw him raising his camera and apparently thought it was a gun and that he was about to shoot Buck. Blanche is screaming at Schwartz.”
― John Neal Phillips, My Life with Bonnie and Clyde