Charles Portis Quotes

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

We must each of us bear our own misfortunes.

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

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

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?

Time just gets away from us.

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.

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.