Charles Portis Quotes
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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?
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I have never been one to flinch or crawfish when faced with an unpleasant task.
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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.
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If you want anything done right you will have to see to it yourself every time.
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We must each of us bear our own misfortunes.
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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.
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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.
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Time just gets away from us.
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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.
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Nothing I like to do pays well.
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You do not think much of me, do you, Cogburn?I don't think about you at all when your mouth is closed.
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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.
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I didn't care for beat reporting, covering the same thing day after day - short attention span.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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I had not the strength nor the inclination to bandy words with a drunkard. What have you done when you have bested a fool?
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I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.