Truman Capote > Quotes

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

“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.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“It may be normal, darling; but I'd rather be natural.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“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.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Short Novel and Three Stories

“Aprils have never meant much to me, autumns seem that season of beginning, spring.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call “out there.”
― Truman Capote, In Cold Blood

“More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.”
― Truman Capote, Answered Prayers

“It’s better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“You can love somebody without it being like that. You keep them a stranger, a stranger who's a friend.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“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?”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“Home is where you feel at home. I'm still looking.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“You can't blame a writer for what the characters say.”
― Truman Capote

“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.”
― Truman Capote

“He loved her, he loved her, and until he'd loved her she had never minded being alone....”
― Truman Capote, Summer Crossing

“But I'm not a saint yet. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a drug addict. I'm homosexual. I'm a genius.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“You can’t give your heart to a wild thing.”
― Truman Capote

“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.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“Never love a wild thing...If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make.”
― Truman Capote, Truman Capote: Conversations

“Everybody has to feel superior to somebody," she said. "But it's customary to present a little proof before you take the privilege.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love, having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, no matter, it will rise and find the surface: and why not? any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person's nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell. ”
― Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms

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

“Don't wanna sleep, don't wanna die, just wanna go a-travellin' through the pastures of the sky”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“I told you: you can make yourself love anybody.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“It is no shame to have a dirty face- the shame comes when you keep it dirty.”
― Truman Capote, In Cold Blood

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

“would you reach in the drawer there and give me my purse. A girl doesn't read this sort of thing without her lipstick.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Short Novel and Three Stories