Famous Truman Capote Quotations

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"A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That's why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet."
by Truman Capote
"The true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory."
by Truman Capote
"Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor."
by Truman Capote
"Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it."
by Truman Capote
"I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil."
by Truman Capote
"I don't care what anybody says about me as long as it isn't true."
by Truman Capote
"I got this idea of doing a really serious big work-it would be precisely like a novel, with a single difference: Every word of it would be true from beginning to end."
by Truman Capote
"In California everyone goes to a therapist, is a therapist, or is a therapist going to a therapist."
by Truman Capote
"it's a well-known photograph. This was 1984, just three months before he died."
by Truman Capote
"It's a scientific fact that if you stay in California you lose one point of your IQ every year."
by Truman Capote
"Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act."
by Truman Capote
"Sometimes when I think how good my book can be, I can hardly breathe."
by Truman Capote
"That's not writing, that's typing."
by Truman Capote
"The quietness of his tone italicized the malice of his reply."
by Truman Capote
"To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make."
by Truman Capote
"Well, we've only had a certain number of executions in the last few years- whatever it was- and two of them were for the personal convenience of Truman Capote."
by William Frank Buckley, Jr.
"Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself."
by Truman Capote
"A society person who is enthusiastic about modern painting or Truman Capote is already half a traitor to his class. It is middle-class people who, quite mistakenly, imagine that a lively pursuit of the latest in reading and painting will advance their status in the world."
by Mary McCarthy
"Champagne does have one regular drawback: swilled as a regular thing a certain sourness settles in the tummy, and the result is permanent bad breath. Really incurable."
by Truman Capote
"Fame is only good for one thing - they will cash your check in a small town."
by Truman Capote
"Friendship is a pretty full-time occupation if you really are friendly with somebody. You can't have too many friends because then you're just not really friends."
by Truman Capote
"And nice to have seen you, Sue. Good luck, he called after her as she disappeared down the path, a pretty girl in a hurry, her smooth hair swinging, shining - just such a young woman as Nancy might have been. Then, starting home, he walked toward the trees, and under them, leaving behind him the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat."
by Truman Capote
"Son, I'd say you were going at it the wrong end first, said the Judge, turning up his coat-collar. How could you care about one girl? Have you ever cared about one leaf? Riley, listening to the wildcat with an itchy hunter's look, snatched at the leaves blowing about us like midnight butterflies; alive, fluttering as though to escape and fly, one stayed trapped between his fingers. The Judge, too: he caught a leaf; and it was worth more in his hand than in Riley's. Pressing it mildly against his cheek, he distantly said, We are speaking of love. A leaf, a handful of seed--begin with these, learn a little what it is to love. First, a leaf, a fall of rain, then someone to receive what a leaf has taught you, what a fall of rain has ripened. No easy process, understand; it could take a lifetime, it has mine, and still I've never mastered it--I only know how true it is: that love is a chain of love, as nature is a chain of life."
by Truman Capote


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