Best 33 quotes of Charles Portis on MyQuotes

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.

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?

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

I had hated these ponies for the part they played in my father's death but now I realized the notion was fanciful, that it was wrong to charge blame to these pretty beasts who knew neither good nor evil but only innocence. I say that of these ponies. 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? Some preachers will say, well, that is superstitious "claptrap." My answer is this: Preacher, go to your Bible and read Luke 8: 26-33

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?

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.

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.

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.

Listen, here's what I'd like to do: I'd like to live in a trailer and play records all night.

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.

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.

My Master of Arts degree means nothing at all to these monkeys and I have come to share their indifference.

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.

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.

On his deathbed he asked for a priest and became a Catholic. That was his wife's religion. It was his own business and none of mine. If you had sentenced one hundred and sixty men to death and seen around eighty of them swing, then maybe at the last minute you would feel the need for some stronger medicine than the Methodists could make.

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 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.

She gave me a pledge card, a card promising an annual gift of $5, $10, or $25 toward the support of the Unity mission. I filled it out under the hot light of the projector. The name and address spaces were much too short, unless you wrote a very fine hand or unless your name was Ed Poe and you lived at 1 Elm St.

The wicked flee when none pursueth.

Time just gets away from us.

What have you done when you have bested a fool?

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.

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.

I confess [Election] is a hard doctrine, running contrary to our earthly ideas of fair play, but I can see no way around it. Read I Corinthians 6:13 and II Timothy 1:9,10. Also I Peter 1:2,19,20 and Romans 11:7. There you have it. It was good for Paul and Silas and it is good enough for me. It is good enough for you too.

I don't think about you at all when your mouth is closed.

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.

I'm white and I don't dance, but that doesn't mean I have all the answers.

I will go further and say all cats are wicked, though often useful. Who has not seen Satan in their sly faces? Some preachers will say, well, that is superstitious "claptrap." My answer is this: Preacher, go to your Bible and read Luke 8: 26-33

The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner.

This ends my true account of how I avenged Frank Ross' blood over in Choctaw Nation when snow was on the ground.

Tom Chaney would pay for this! I would not rest easy until that Louisiana cur was roasting and screaming in hell!

You are a pearl of great price to me, but there are times when you are an almighty trial to those who love you.

You cannot carry water on both shoulders.

You put things off and then one morning you wake up and say—today I will change the oil in my truck.