Charles Portis Quotes

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?

Playing evil is just not interesting. I don't think anyone who does evil stuff thinks they're doing evil stuff. That's the scary part.

I don't think anyone sets out to be the evil villain.

He was my father. I own half his genes, and all of his history. Believe this: the mistakes are part of the story. I am born of a man who believed he could tell nothing but the truth, while he set down for all time the Poisonwood Bible.

I believe that most of us would like to be thought well of by horses.

The greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion; hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere.

Reality is much more complex than any judgment of right and wrong encourages you to believe. When you really understand the ethical, spiritual, social, economic, and psychological forces that shape individuals, you will see that people's choices are not based on a desire to hurt. Instead, they are in accord with what they know and what world views are available to them. Most are doing the best they can, given what information they've received and what problems they are facing.

A peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when be sees a camel.

Let's stop believing that our differences make us superior or inferior to one another. Let's not be afraid that our different colors make us different people. Who cares? It's just a lie, and we don't have to believe all the lies and superstitions that control our lives.

Morality is the tendency to pour out the baby with the bathwater.

. . . as to moral feeling, this supposed special sense, the appeal to it is indeed superficial when those who cannot think believe that feeling will help them out, even in what concerns general laws: and besides, feelings which naturally differ infinitely in degree cannot furnish a uniform standard of good and evil, nor has any one a right to form judgments for others by his own feelings. . . .

There is a certain class of people who prefer to say that their fathers came down in the world through their own follies than to boast that they rose in the world through their own industry and talents. It is the same shabby-genteel sentiment, the same vanity of birth which makes men prefer to believe that they are degenerated angels rather than elevated apes.

Every man has the basis of good. Not only human beings, you can find it among animals and insects, for instance, when we treat a dog or horse lovingly.

Commitment is a big part of what I am and what I believe. How committed are you to winning? How committed are you to being a good friend? To being trustworthy? To being successful? How committed are you to being a good father, a good teammate, a good role model? There's that moment every morning when you look in the mirror: Are you committed, or are you not?

Grandpa Patterson used to say: Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear or a fool from any direction.

Gods be good, why would any man ever want to be king? When everyone was shouting King in the North, King in the North, I told myself ... swore to myself ... that I would be a good king, as honorable as Father, strong, just, loyal to my friends and brave when I faced my enemies ... now I can't even tell one from the other.

The failure and the success both believe in their hearts that they have accurately balanced points of view, the success because he's succeeded, and the failure because he's failed. The successful man tells his son to profit by his father's good fortune, and the failure tells his son to profit by his father's mistakes.

It was hard for me to believe. When recess was over I sat in class and thought about it. My mother had a hole and my father had a dong that shot juice. How could they have things like that and walk around as if everything was normal, and talk about things, and then do it and not tell anybody?

Jesus Christ was willing to admit every good man to the family of God. It is not the man who believes a certain something, but the man who does the will of the Father in heaven, who is right. On this basis-being right and doing right-the whole world can unite.

Can a woodchuck chuck wood? Because the question is, "how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if," so you haven't established or proved without any shadow of a doubt that a woodchuck could chuck wood. Frankly, I believe that they chew wood. I don't think they can chuck wood at all! I take offense to the whole chucking question.

Earthshaker, Stormbreaker, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God

If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it; but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at.

I think in the end officials in each country's judicial system will do what they believe is right because if they do something bad to somebody it's on their conscience for the rest of their lives.

It also comes down to parenting. It is important to know what your beliefs are, and that you have to stand up for them or you don't really believe in them. You know, my father and mother - in fact, every member of my immediate family - have worked for the federal government. Sometimes misunderstood is that I didn't stand up to overthrow the system.

One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.