Truman Capote Quotes

My yardstick is how somebody treats me.

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

We all, sometimes, leave each other there under the skies, and we never understand why.

Nancy Clutter is always in a hurry, but she always has time. And that's one definition of a lady.

[L]ove, having no geography, knows no boundaries.

I've never had an affair with somebody who wasn't at the same time a very good friend of mine, if you see what I mean.

Actually, I think friendship and love are exactly the same thing.

I can see every monster as they come in.

Anticipation is anxiety. I have always had a very extreme anxiety thing.

Intelligence alone can't make a good writer and style alone can't make a good writer - that is, not a really important or significant writer - but the two things together make a really good writer.

The quietness of his tone italicized the malice of his reply.

I don't think I've ever drunk champagne before breakfast before. With breakfast on several occasions, but never before before.

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

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

The problem with living outside the law is that you no longer have its protection.

I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods.

All literature is gossip.

Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.

I am a completely horizontal author. I can't think unless I'm lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch.

Good writing is rewriting.

A boy has to peddle his book.

I prefer to underwrite. Simple, clear as a country creek.

When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended for self-flagellation solely.

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.

And since gin to artifice bears the same relation as tears to mascara, her attractions at once dissembled.

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

I hated Hemingway. I liked Faulkner but he was a bore.

I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany´s.

I dream of eagles and bring forth sparrows.

But it's Sunday, Mr. Bell. Clocks are slow on Sundays.

And in this moment, like a swift intake of breath, the rain came.

Imagination, of course, can open any door - turn the key and let terror walk right in.

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.

The average personality re-shapes frequently, every few years even our bodies undergo a complete overhaul-desirable or not, it is a natural thing that we should change.

Aprils have never meant much to me, autumns seem that season of beginning, spring.

When I am writing, I try to do it five hours a day but I spend about two of those just fooling around.

One of the most difficult things in writing a novel or anything at all is to choose the point of view from which it's going to be told.

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

My major regret in life is that my childhood was unnecessarily lonely.

It is the want to know the end that makes us believe in God, or witchcraft, believe, at least, in something

That's not writing, that's typing

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'll never get used to anything. Anybody that does they might as well be dead.

Everybody has to feel superior to somebody," she said. "But it's customary to present a little proof before you take the privilege.

Dizzy with excitement is no mere phrase.

It’s better to look at the sky than live there

I like to talk on TV about those things that aren't worth writing about.

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.

He loved her, he loved her, and until he'd loved her she had never minded being alone.

Personally, I rather think that if you're not creative you've got a problem on your hands. If you are creative you've got a double problem.