Supernatural: 10 Most Inspiring Winchester Quotes

The Winchester brothers have gone through some serious rough patches in 14 seasons of hunting monsters. It’s only natural they’d have to give each other some serious pep talks along the way just to keep going, not to mention the comforting words they have to offer friends and monster victims.

Through monster-of-the-week hunts, deaths of nearly every family member and friend they have, and multiple apocalypses, they’ve had to motivate themselves and refuel their determination to save people and hunt things. That means plenty of motivational moments for loyal fans as well. Here are some Winchester quotes that remind Supernatural fans to keep fighting the good fight in their own lives.

10 “What I do have is a GED, and a give ’em hell attitude and I’ll figure it out.”

If Dean Winchester has a superpower, it’s determination. Beating the odds can seem impossible for those who feel they’re just an average Joe or Jane. But Dean Winchester is a high school dropout with an extensive criminal background, and he saves the world all the time.

Ironically, Dean doesn’t actually believe what he’s saying when he says this in season 5, in the episode “Sympathy for the Devil.” It’s a mid-apocalypse pep talk, and he’s just putting a brave face on for Bobby. But he somehow proves himself right anyway, preventing Michael and Lucifer’s smackdown through the sheer obstinacy of saying no to Michael and sticking by Sam even when he’s possessed by Satan. It’s a reminder that anyone could be a hero.

9 “I see light at the end of this tunnel… And if you come with me, I can take you to it.”

Sam tends to be the more hopeful of the Winchester brothers, where Dean tends to fake his optimism for others. When the trials to close the gates of hell got off to a bad start in season 8’s episode “Trial and Error,” Dean tried to insist he should still be the one to do them even though he failed to kill a hellhound.

But Sam voiced his concern about what Dean was really thinking: that this was probably going to kill the one who closed the gates, and he didn’t mind dying. It shows that the hope of friends and family can see a person through when they’ve lost all hope of their own.

8 “Life’s short. Now, ours are shorter than most. We’re gonna spend it wringing our hands?”

Dean can definitely hold a grudge with the best of them. But when Rufus Turner dies in season 6, he’s not pleased with the fact Rufus never forgave Bobby for an incident in Omaha. Dean puts his own spin on the life’s-too-short speech, and insists that if he dies, they should assume they’re forgiven for anything and everything.

That’s a hard thing for a hunter to say. The boys have been through more than most, and blanket forgiveness would be difficult even under normal circumstances. But he definitely has a point. Harboring a grudge just wastes valuable time that could’ve been spent with family and friends.

7 “It doesn’t matter what you are. It only matters what you do.”

Before the boys became Team Free Will, they already valued choice. Sam struggled in the earlier seasons with how to see himself as anything but tainted with the demon blood in his system. He feared that he was doomed to be evil against his will.

But he phrased it just this simply in season 4’s “Metamorphosis” when confronted with a man who was changing into a rugaru and wanting to eat human flesh. It’s people’s actions that make them who they are. People may have different challenges that make it hard for them to do the right thing, but it ultimately comes down to personal choice.

6 “My peace is helping people.”

Sam and Dean have made some lethally bad decisions over the years. So how to deal with the guilt? In season 10’s “Halt and Catch Fire,” they investigate a case of a ghost in the wi-fi. Dean urges the ghost to choose peace over pain, and just move on to the afterlife. Ultimately it’s the man’s wife who persuades him to go and leave the targeted co-ed alone.

But when Sam and Dean are having their end-of-show car talk, Dean explains how he’s going to make peace with having the mark of Cain: just keep saving people and hunting things. Helping others is what makes life feel worthwhile.

5 “That power? It doesn’t control you. You control it.”

This is another hard-earned pearl of wisdom from Sam, who had his own issues with psychic powers. In season 12’s “American Nightmare,” Sam and Dean investigate supposed demonic attacks only to find a psychic girl locked in the basement by her religious family.

This is supposed to protect other people from what her parents believe to be demonic powers, but they subject her to physical abuse. This makes her try to reach out psychically and she accidentally kills people by transmitting the abuse to them. While psychic powers are pretty extreme, Magda’s hardly the first person to fear their own power, abilities, or what makes them special. As Sam suggests here, people should own their strengths instead of fearing them.

4 “We’re all a little weird, we’re all a little wacky. Some more than others. But if it works, it works.”

Sam and Dean have had some truly bizarre team-ups. They’ve had angels and demons on their team, made friends with vampires, and helped prevent the killing of imaginary friends. But these were Dean’s words of comfort to Garth in season 9’s “Sharp Teeth,” when Garth’s new werewolf family turns out not to have been perfectly hunky-dory.

This was hard for Garth to accept since his werewolf wife had saved him from attempted suicide after he turned. But after an initial skepticism toward the wolves, Dean acknowledges that family is family, and all families are weird. He would know—his brother used to be psychic.

3 “Maybe part of that powerful force has to be you.”

When Dean is dealing with the side effects of the mark of Cain in season 10, he gets desperate. They know that it’ll take something very powerful to get rid of it, but they can’t figure out what. Sam points out in the episode “The Hunter Games” that if Cain lived with it for years without murdering anyone, then maybe that power has to come from within.

This goes back to their old struggle with free will and whether someone can be doomed to evil. Given his experience, it’s natural that Sam would assume Dean had a choice and could stop it with self-control. Though the boys ultimately took a messier way out, the point stands for viewers. Self-control is power and one of the best for preventing evil.

2 “Every day, we can get better.”

Sam and Dean are pretty tough guys, but they have their weaknesses. So when Jack, their-not-quite-son, is having nightmares over his inability to protect the people from Apocalypse World, Dean offers him a little advice. He reassures him that no matter how strong someone is, that doesn’t prevent things from going sideways.

And he ends with this encouragement to keep trying. This comes from the season 13 finale, “Let the Good Times Roll,” before Dean is cornered into saying yes to Michael and accidentally gets himself possessed longer than he bargained for. But he’s right; it’s better to work on your weaknesses than just bemoan them.

1 “One thing I’ve learned—heroes aren’t perfect.”

Sam and Dean may be heroes to fans, but they’ve left a lot of collateral damage and made big mistakes along the way (like releasing Lucifer and later Amara from their respective cages). When Sam’s imaginary friend Sully pops in during season 11’s “Just My Imagination,” Sam gets to see his own hero struggle with his past mistakes.

Sully abandoned one of the kids he was supposed to help because he accidentally killed her sister. But after all the big mistakes Sam’s been through, he offers this comfort to his old friend. Even heroes screw up, but that doesn’t make them awful people.

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