70 Quotes by Charles Portis

I didn't care for beat reporting, covering the same thing day after day - short attention span.

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.

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

There is no knowing what is in a man's heart.

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.

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?

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

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

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.