Top 15 Charles Portis Quotes

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

Time just gets away from us.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

Nothing I like to do pays well.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.