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Charles Portis
22 quotes
“People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tom Chaney rode his gray horse that was better suited to pulling a middlebuster than carrying a rider. He had no hand gun but he carried his rifle slung across his back on a piece of cotton plow line. There is trash for you. He could have taken an old piece of harness and made a nice leather strap for it. That would have been too much trouble.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have since learned that Judge Isaac Parker watched all his hangings from an upper window in the Courthouse. I suppose he did this from a sense of duty. There is no knowing what is in a man's heart.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have never been one to flinch or crawfish when faced with an unpleasant task.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have known some horses and a good many more pigs who I believe harbored evil intent in their hearts. I will go further and say all cats are wicked, though often useful. Who has not seen Satan in their sly faces?”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must each of us bear our own misfortunes.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You cannot earn that or deserve it.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If in four months I could not find Tom Chaney with a mark on his face like banished Cain I would not undertake to advise others how to do it.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you want anything done right you will have to see to it yourself every time.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As he drank, little brown drops of coffee clung to his mustache like dew. Men will live like billy goats if they are let alone.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have left off crying, and giggling as well. Now make up your mind. I don't care anything for all this talk. You told me what your price for the job was and I have come up with it. Here is the money. I aim to get Tom Chaney and if you are not game I will find somebody who is game. All I have heard out of you so far is talk. I know you can drink whiskey and I have seen you kill a gray rat. All the rest has been talk. They told me you had grit and that is why I came to you. I am not paying for talk. I can get all the talk I need and more at the Monarch boardinghouse.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I never seen anybody from Texas I couldn't shade. Get cross-ways of me, LaBoeuf, and you will think a thousand of brick has fell on you. You will wisht you had been at the Alamo with Travis.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing I like to do pays well.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You do not think much of me, do you, Cogburn? I don't think about you at all when your mouth is closed.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had not the strength nor the inclination to bandy words with a drunkard. What have you done when you have bested a fool?”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most girls like play pretties, but you like guns, don’t you? I don't care a thing in the world about guns. If I did I would have one that worked.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned, or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker's convenience! Which will you have? I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man! Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know what they said even if they would not say it to my face. People love to talk. They love to slander you if you have any substance. They say I love nothing but money and the Presbyterian Church and that is why I never married.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Time just gets away from us.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My life is over, for all practical purposes. I no longer have enough money to keep a women.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now the drummers did not rush out to grab Chaney or shoot him but instead scattered like poultry while Chaney took my father's purse from his warm body and ripped open the trouser band and took the gold pieces too. I cannot say how he knew about them. When he finished his thieving he raced to the end of the street and struck the night watchman at the stock barn a fierce blow to the mouth with his rifle stock, knocking him silly. He put a bridle on Papa's horse Judy and rode out bareback. Darkness swallowed him up. He might have taken the time to saddle the horse or hitched up three spans of mules to a Concord stagecoach and smoked a pipe as it seems no one in that city was after him. He had mistaken the drummers for men.”
Charles Portis (1933–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source