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