Truman Capote Quotes

Lively, too. Talky as a jaybird. With something smart to say on every subject: better than the radio.

The walls of the cell fell away, the sky came down, I saw the big yellow bird.

Some cities, like wrapped boxes under Christmas trees, conceal unexpected gifts, secret delights. Some cities will always remain wrapped boxes, containers of riddles never to be solved, nor even to be seen by vacationing visitors, or, for that matter, the most inquisitive, persistent travelers.

All writing, all art, is an act of faith. If one tries to contribute to human understanding, how can that be called decadent? It's like saying a declaration of love is an act of decadence. Any work of art, provide it springs from a sincere motivation to further understanding between people, is an act of faith and therefore is an act of love.

It snowed all week. Wheels and footsteps moved soundlessly on the street, as if the business of living continued secretly behind a pale but impenetrable curtain. In the falling quiet there was no sky or earth, only snow lifting in the wind, frosting the window glass, chilling the rooms, deadening and hushing the city. At all hours it was necessary to keep a lamp lighted, and Mrs. Miller lost track of the days: Friday was no different from Saturday and on Sunday she went to the grocery: closed, of course.

Existe una raza de hombres inadaptados, de hombres que no pueden parar ni establecerse, hombres que destrozan el corazón de quien se acerque a ellos y que vagan por el mundo a la ventura...
Recorren la tierra, remontan los ríos, escalan de la montaña las cimas más altas, llevan en sí la maldición de la sangre gitana y no saben lo que quiere decir descansar. Si no se movieran de una misma senda llegarían lejos: fuertes son, valientes y sinceros. Pero acaban cansándose siempre de todas las cosas y sólo adoran lo extraño y lo nuevo.

They can romanticize us so, mirrors, and that is their secret: what a subtle torture it would be to destroy all the mirrors in the world: where then could we look for reassurerance of our identities? I tell you, my dear, Narcissus was so egotist...he was merely another of us who, in our unshatterable isolation, recognized, on seeing his reflection, the beautiful comrade, the only inseparatable love...poor Narcissus, possibly the only human who was ever honest on this point.

Past certain ages or certain wisdoms it is very difficult to look with wonder; it is best done when one is a child; after that, and if you are lucky, you will find a bridge of childhood and walk across it.

[Y]outh is hardly human: it can't be, for the young never believe they will die...especially would they never believe that death comes, and often, in forms other than the natural one.

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

I haven't anything against whores, except this: some of them may have an honest tongue but they all have dishonest hearts.

Maybe the older you grow and the less easy it is to put thought into action, maybe that’s why it gets all locked up in your head and becomes a burden.

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 divined 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.

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.

But my dear, so few things are fulfilled: what are most lives but a series of incomplete episodes