Top 53 Charles Portis Quotes
#1. But 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
#3. As we rode along LaBoeuf commenced whistling tunes, perhaps to take his mind off his sore arm. Rooster said, "God damn a man that whistles!" It was the wrong thing to say if he wished it to stop.
Charles Portis
#4. A reporter from 'The Times' wanted to arm-wrestle, and as I recall, he kept challenging me. So we went at it, and there was a pop. His arm broke. Very strange. He went into a kind of swoon.
Charles Portis
#5. I will go further and say all cats are wicked, though often useful
Charles Portis
#6. MR.GOUDY: I believe you testified that you backed away from Aaron Wharton.
MR.COGBURN: That is right.
MR.GOUDY: You were backing away?
MR.COGBURN: Yes sir. He had that ax raised.
MR.GOUDY: Which direction were you going?
MR.COGBURN: I always go backwards when I am backing up.
Charles Portis
#7. It was old President Diaz who said that nothing ever happens in Mexico until it happens. Things rock along from day to day, and then all at once you are caught up in a rush of unforeseen events.
Charles Portis
#9. I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.
Charles Portis
#10. Listen, here's what I'd like to do: I'd like to live in a trailer and play records all night.
Charles Portis
#11. The People's' historic duty was to become a nameless herd and submit to the absolute control of a small pack of wily and vicious intellectuals.
Charles Portis
#13. My Master of Arts degree means nothing at all to these monkeys and I have come to share their indifference.
Charles Portis
#14. 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.
Charles Portis
#15. wind came up through the floor hole in such a way that the Heath wrappers were suspended behind my head in a noisy brown vortex
Charles Portis
#16. In the Anthropology Club, as I understood it, you were permitted, if not required, to despise only one thing, and that was your own culture, that of the West.
Charles Portis
#17. Nothing is too long or too short either if you have a true and interesting tale and what I call a "graphic" writing style combined with educational aims.
Charles Portis
#18. You are a pearl of great price to me, but there are times when you are an almighty trial to those who love you.
Charles Portis
#19. I am ready. I have repented my sins and soon I will be in heaven with Christ my savior. Now I must die like a man.
Charles Portis
#21. 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
#22. Mexican homes as a rule are closed off to the world by high blank walls of yellowish masonry, topped with broken glass to discourage escaladores, or climbing burglars. The gardens and fountains and other delights are hidden, as in an Arab city.
Charles Portis
#24. He drank even as he rode, which looked difficult. I cannot say it slowed him down any, but it did make him silly. Why do people wish to be silly?
Charles Portis
#26. One time you smash a bug with no mercy. Another time you find one helpless on his back with his legs flailing the air, and you flip him over and let him go on his way. The struggle that touches the heart.
Charles Portis
#27. 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
#28. Do they pay you by the hour or what? Norwood said to the monocled peanut face.
Charles Portis
#29. I didn't care for beat reporting, covering the same thing day after day - short attention span.
Charles Portis
#30. If I had received good instruction as a child I would be with my family today and at peace with my neighbors. I hope and pray that all you parents in the sound of my voice will train up your children in the way they should go.
Charles Portis
#31. I'm white and I don't dance, but that doesn't mean I have all the answers.
Charles Portis
#32. If you want anything done right you will have to see to it yourself every time.
Charles Portis
#34. When the beer came, I dipped a finger in it and wet down each corner of the paper napkin to anchor it, so it would not come up with the mug each time and make me appear ridiculous. I
Charles Portis
#35. 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
#36. They later moved to a tin-roof house that was situated in a gas field under a spectacular flare that burned all the time. Big copper-green beetles the size of mice came from all over the Southland to see it and die in it. At night their corpses pankled down on the tin roof.
Charles Portis
#37. You go for a man hard and fast enough and he don't have time to think about how many is with him, he thinks about himself and how he may get clear out of the wrath that is about to set down on him.
Charles Portis
#39. I said, 'I don't like the way you look.'
Quincy stopped his work. He said, 'Are you talking to me, runt?'
I said, 'Yes, and I will say it again. I don't like the way you look and I don't like the way you are cutting up that turkey. I hope you go to jail. My lawyer will not help you.
Charles Portis
#40. Who all is in there? Speak up and be quick about it!' 'A Methodist and a son a bitch!
Charles Portis
#41. The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner.
Charles Portis
#42. I noticed that the houses in Fort Smith were numbered but it was no city at all compared to Little Rock. I thought then and still think that Fort Smith ought to be in Oklahoma instead of Arkansas ...
Charles Portis
#43. She said, 'Goodbye, Reuben, a love for decency does not abide in you.' There is your divorced woman talking about decency. I told her, I said, 'Goodbye, Nola, I hope that little nail selling bastard will make you happy this time.
Charles Portis
#45. Lucille Biggers Langford and Florence Mabry Whiteside. As the
Charles Portis
#47. You can expect that out of Federal people and to make it worse this was a Republican gang that cared nothing for the opinion of the good people of Arkansas who are Democrats.
Charles Portis
#48. 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
#49. Tom Chaney would pay for this! I would not rest easy until that Louisiana cur was roasting and screaming in hell!
Charles Portis
#50. You put things off and then one morning you wake up and say - today I will change the oil in my truck.
Charles Portis
#51. I bought some crackers and a piece of hoop cheese and an apple at a grocery store and sat on a nail keg by the stove and had a cheap yet nourishing lunch. You know what they say, Enough is as good as a feast.
Charles Portis
#52. Now I was surprised and light-headed, like a domestic fowl that finds itself able to fly over a low fence in a moment of terror.
Charles Portis
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