Truman Capote

“The blame of course belonged to Clyde, who just was not much given to talk. Also, he seemed very little curious himself: Grady, alarmed sometimes by the meagerness of his inquiries and the indifference this might suggest, supplied him liberally with personal information; which isn't to say she always told the truth, how many people in love do? or can? but at least she permitted him enough truth to account more or less accurately for all the life she had lived away from him. It was her feeling, however, that he would as soon not hear her confessions: he seemed to want her to be as elusive, as secretive as he was himself.”

“Grady for an instant felt the oddest loss: poor Peter, he knew her even less, she realized, than Apple, and yet, because he was her only friend, she wanted to tell him: not now, sometime. And what would he say? Because he was Peter, she trusted him to love her more: if not, then let the sea usurp their castle, not the one they'd built to keep life out, it was already gone, at least for her, but another, that one sheltering friendships and promises.”

“As long as you live, there's always something waiting; and even if it's bad, and you know it's bad, what can you do? You can't stop living.”

“And unless one can observe the guilt and regret of the mourners, surely there is nothing satisfactory about being dead?”

“Time. Time. What is time? Swiss manufacture it, French hoard it, Italians squander it, Americans say it is money. Hindus say it does not exist. Know what I say? I say time is a crook.”

“Just remember: If one bird carried every grain of sand, grain by grain, across the ocean, by the time he got them all on the other side, that would only be the beginning of eternity. ”

“Poor slob without a name. It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't the right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together.”

“You know the days when you get the mean reds?Paul Varjak: The mean reds. You mean like the blues?Holly Golightly: No. The blues are because you’re getting fat, and maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re just sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid, and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?”

“we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I.”

“Have you never heard what the wise man say : all of the future exists in the past.”

“I knew damn well I would never be a movie star. It's too hard; and if you are intelligent, it's too embarrassing. My complexes aren't inferior enough: being a movie star and having a big fat ego are supposed to go hand-in-hand; actually, it's essential not to have any ego at all. I don't mean I'd mind being rich and famous. That's very much on my schedule, and someday I'll try and get around to it; but if it happens, I'd like to have my ego, tagging along. I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany's.”

“Every day I woke up saying "If I die....", not realising how dead I was already, and only a memory tagging along with Delores and Pepe... Wherever they were: I grieved for Pepe, not because I'd lost him (yes, that a little), but because in the end I knew Delores would find him, too: it is easy to escape daylight, but night is inevitable, and dreams are the giant cage.”

“There’s got to be something wrong with us. To do what we did. ”

“The answer is good things only happen to you if you're good. Good? Honest is more what I mean... Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart.”

“So the days, the last days, blow about in a memory, hazy autumnal, all alike as leaves: until a day unlike any other I've lived”

“as we watched seaward-moving ships pass between the cliffs of burning skyline, she said: 'years from now, years and years, one of those ships will bring me back, me and my nine Brazillian brats, because yes, they must see this, these lights, the river-- I love New York, even though it isn't mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something anyway, that belongs to me because I belong to it.' And I said: 'Do shut up,' for I felt infuriatingly left out-- a tugboat in a dry-dock while she, glittery voyager of secure destination steamed down the harbor with whistles whistling and confetti in the air.”

“Leave it to me: I'm always top banana in the shock department.”

“I've got to stay awake,' she said, punching her cheeks until the roses came. 'There isn't time to sleep, I'd look consumptive, I'd sag like a tenement, and that wouldn't be fair: a girl can't go to Sing Sing with a green face.”

“But he does look stupid.'Yearning. Not stupid. He wants awfully to be on the inside staring out: anybody with their nose pressed against a glass is liable to look stupid.”

“I'm very scared, Buster. Yes, at last. Because it could go on forever. Not knowing what's yours until you've thrown it away.”

“It's a bore, but the answer is good things only happen to you if you're good. Good? Honest is more what I mean. Not lawtype honest--I'd rob a grave, I'd steal two-bits off a dead man's eyes if I thought it would contribute to the day's enjoyment--but unto-thyself-type honest. Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart. Which isn't being pious. Just practical. Cancer may cool you, but the other's sure to.”

“What I found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it;nothing very bad could happen to you there. ”

“I don't care what anybody says about me as long as it isn't true.”

“But I know what I like.' She smiled, and et the cat drop to the floor. 'It's like Tiffany's,'she said. 'Not that I give a hoot about jewellery. Diamonds, yes. But it's tacky to wear diamonds before you're forty; and even that's risky.”

“Capote's rejoinder to Kerouac's assertion that he never needed to edit his work....."But, that's not writing . That's typing.”

“I despise people who can't control themselves.”

“Of many magics, one is watching a beloved sleep: free of eyes and awareness, you for a sweet moment hold the heart of him; helpless, he is then all, and however irrationally, you have trusted him to be, man-pure, child-tender. ”

“morning was in the room and pigeons were gargling on the fire escape.”

“The way his plump hand clutched at her hip seemed somehow improper; not morally, aesthetically.”

“I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together.”

“Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.”

“It's redundant to die in Los Angeles.”

“It's a scientific fact that if you stay in California you lose one point of your IQ every year.”

“If you sweep a house, and tend its fires and fill its stove, and there is love in you all the years you are doing this, then you and that house are married, that house is yours.”

“It is no shame to have a dirty face- the shame comes when you keep it dirty.”

“I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.”

“would you reach in the drawer there and give me my purse. A girl doesn't read this sort of thing without her lipstick.”

“Since each story presents its own technical problems, obviously one can't generalize about them on a two-times-two-equals-four basis. Finding the right form for your story is simply to realize the most natural way of telling the story. The test of whether or not a writer has defined the natural shape of his story is just this: After reading it, can you imagine it differently, or does it silence your imagination and seem to you absolute and final? As an orange is final. As an orange is something nature has made just right.”

“Well, I'm about as tall as a shotgun, and just as noisy.”

“Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell,' Holly advised him. 'That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky.""She's drunk," Joe Bell informed me. "Moderately," Holly confessed....Holly lifted her martini. "Let's wish the Doc luck, too," she said, touching her glass against mine. "Good luck: and believe me, dearest Doc -- it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.”

“It may be normal, darling; but I'd rather be natural.”

“Those fellows, they're always crying over killers. Never a thought for the victims.”

“Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.”

“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”

“But mostly they were lies I told; it wasn't my fault, I couldn't remember, because it was as though I'd been to one of those supernatural castles visited by characters in legends: once away, you do not remember, all that is left is the ghostly echo of haunting wonder.”

“There were hints of sunrise on the rim of the sky, yet it was still dark, and the traces of morning color were like goldfish swimming in ink.”

“think of nothing thingsthink of wind”

“I love New York, even though it isn't mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something, anyway, that belongs to me because I belong to it.”

“She was still hugging the cat. "Poor slob," she said, tickling his head, "poor slob without a name. It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't any right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like." She smiled, and let the cat drop to the floor. "It's like Tiffany's," she said.[...]It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name.”

“But I'm not a saint yet. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a drug addict. I'm homosexual. I'm a genius.”