True Grit

by Charles Portis

You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You cannot earn that or deserve it.

I also read a little book someone had left on the table called Bess Calloway’s Disappointment. It was about a girl in England who could not make up her mind whether to marry a rich man with a pack of dogs named Alec or a preacher. She was a pretty girl in easy circumstances who did not have to cook or work at anything and she could have either one she wanted. She made trouble for herself because she would never say what she meant but only blush and talk around it. She kept everybody in a stir wondering what she was driving at. That was what held your interest.

I didn’t know what I was doing. I was like a man fighting bees.