Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Charles Portis

Quote by Charles Portis

“If I had received good instruction as a child I would be with my family today and at peace with my neighbors. 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.”

Quote by Charles Portis

Book:True Grit
Create image

Work

True Grit

This novel, renowned for its vivid portrayal of the American frontier, follows the determined young woman as she seeks retribution against the man who killed her father. The story is set in the late 19th century and is known for its strong character development and gripping narrative. more

Author

Charles Portis
Charles Portis

Charles Portis is an American author born on December 28, 1933. Known for his humorous and witty writing style, Portis has won the hearts of readers with his works. His novel 'True Grit' is a classic road novel that showcases his unique narrative style. more

You May Also Like

“I've tried to teach what I learned all those years in my mother and father's house, all those things I didn't realize I was learning and that I never knew I'd be so grateful for. When you have love and it's proffered every day in a kind of tender, yet stern insistence and even reckless laughter, when it is given to you and you accept it in life as a thing as natural as rain or snow, or the littler of leaves in fall, you can't help but take it for granted. For a bewildered while you incorrectly understand that the world has given you this becuase it's there in equal measure, everywhere. You never knowuntil it's too late to do anything about it, how seet the effort is: how lasting the human will to love can be in the breast of people who want to make it for you, who want to give it to you, without calculating what's in it fo them, without thinking at all of what it will mean when you grow to full adulthood, see the world as it is, and forget to mention what you have been given. Ever day of my grown-up life, I have wanted to do what my parents did. I have wanted to widen the province of love and weaken hate and bitterness in the hearts of my children. And I've done these things because of what I got from my family, all those lovely years when I was growing up, being loved and cherished and, unbeknown to me, and in the best way, honored, for myself.”

ChildhoodParentingParentsP14
Book:Dream Me Home Safely: Writers on Growing Up in America – Intimate Essays on Diverse Childhoods
Create image

“Her rage flopped awkwardly away like a duck. She felt as she had when her cold, fierce parents had at last grown sick and old, stick-boned and saggy, protected by infirmity the way cuteness protected a baby, or should, it should protect a baby, and she had been left with her rage--vestigial, girlhood rage--inappropriate and intact. She would hug her parents good-bye, the gentle, emptied sacks of them, and think Where did you go?”

Parents
Author:Lorrie Moore
Create image

“Nightmares did come true. Because, after her second night of major loving with the man of her dreams, the absolute last person she ever wanted to see was her mother. Yet there she was, her small, hefty frame trundling up the stairs to Maira’s front door. She was so frozen with horror, she couldn’t move until she heard the doorbell ring. Don’t answer it. Maybe she’ll go away. Well, that was just stupid.”

HumorParents
Book:Veiled Seduction
Create image

“The thing about old friends is not that they love you, but that they know you. They remember that disastrous New Year's Eve when you mixed White Russians and champagne, and how you wore that red maternity dress until everyone was sick of seeing the blaze of it in the office, and the uncomfortable couch in your first apartment and the smoky stove in your beach rental. They look at you and don't really think you look older because they've grown old along with you, and, like the faded paint in a beloved room, they're used to the look. And then one of them is gone, and you've lost a chunk of yourself. The stories of the terrorist attacks of 2001, the tsunami, the Japanese earthquake always used numbers, the deaths of thousands a measure of how great the disaster. Catastrophe is numerical. Loss is singular, one beloved at a time.”

DeathFriendshipLossAging
Book:Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake
Create image