Charles Portis Quotes

“My family has property and I don’t know why I’m being treated like this.”

“I said, “That is my father.” I stood there looking at him. What a waste! Tom Chaney would pay for this! I would not rest easy until that Louisiana cur was roasting and screaming in hell!”

“Your life depends on their actions. I have never busted a cap on a woman or anybody much under sixteen years but I will do what I have to do.”

“LaBoeuf said, ‘There is something in what she says, Cogburn. I think she has done fine myself. She has won her spurs, so to speak. That is just my personal opinion.’ ”

“There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You cannot earn that or deserve it.”

“The buildings are made of fieldstone and all the windows need washing.”

“You can’t rob a thief, can you? I never robbed no citizens.”

“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.”

“People do not give 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 didn’t happen every day.”

“Time just gets away from us.”

“It was a tragic thing. May I say your father impressed me greatly with his manly qualities. He was a close trader but he acted the gentleman.”

″[Every day] a blameless traveler [is] set upon and cut down in some sanguinary ambuscade.”

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

“I have since learned that Judge Isaac Parker watched all the hangings from an upper window in the Courthouse. I suppose he did this from a sense of duty. There is no knowing what’s in a man’s heart.”

“Some people might say, well, what business is it of Frank Ross to meddle? My answer is this: he was trying to do that short devil a good turn. Chaney was a tenant and Papa felt responsibility. He was his brother’s keeper. Does that answer your question?”

“I had not thought before of this disfigured robber having had a childhood.”

“I have left off crying, and giggling as well. […] Here is the money. I aim to get Tom Chaney and if you are not game I will find somebody who is game. 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 true grit and that is why I came to you. I am not paying for talk.”

“Like Martha I have always been agitated and troubled by the cares of the day but my mother had a serene and loving heart. She was like Mary and had chosen the “good” part.”

“I don’t like this kind of talk. It is like women talking.”

“See that you mend your ways, boy, or I will come back some dark night and cut off your head and let the crows peck your eyeballs out.”

“I hurriedly cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger. The charge exploded and sent a lead ball of justice, too long delayed, into the criminal heart of Tom Chaney.”