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Charles Portis Quotes

1933–2020 United States

United States
Novelists
Short story writers

Random Charles Portis quote

17 quotes

If you want anything done right you will have to see to it yourself every time.

True Grit (1968)

I have never been one to flinch or crawfish when faced with an unpleasant task.

True Grit (1968)

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.

True Grit (1968)

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.

True Grit (1968)

I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.

True Grit (1968)

We must each of us bear our own misfortunes.

True Grit (1968)

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.

True Grit (1968)

Nothing I like to do pays well.

True Grit (1968)

I had not the strength nor the inclination to bandy words with a drunkard. What have you done when you have bested a fool?

True Grit (1968)

You do not think much of me, do you, Cogburn?
I don't think about you at all when your mouth is closed.

True Grit (1968)

My life is over, for all practical purposes. I no longer have enough money to keep a women.

True Grit (1968)

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.

True Grit (1968)

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.

True Grit (1968)

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.

True Grit (1968)

Time just gets away from us.

True Grit (1968)

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?

True Grit (1968)

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.

True Grit (1968)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Charles Portis (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.