Truman Capote quotes

Truman Capote was an American novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, famed for works such as "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "In Cold Blood." His innovative writing combined literary elegance with psychological insight. He became a cultural icon known for his flamboyant personality and significant influence on modern literature. Here are 102 of his quotes:

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. (Truman Capote)
Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act. View quote
Truman Capote
It's a scientific fact that if you stay in California, you lose one point of IQ every year. View quote
Truman Capote
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. View quote
Truman Capote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Truman Capote
Imagination, of course, can open any door - turn the key and let terror walk right in. View quote
Truman Capote
I didnt want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat. View quote
Truman Capote
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. View quote
Truman Capote
Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it. View quote
Truman Capote
The enemy was anyone who was someone he wanted to be or who had anything he wanted to have. (Truman Capote)
Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go. View quote
Truman Capote
Love is a chain of love as nature is a chain of life. View quote
Truman Capote
I was eleven, then I was sixteen. Though no honors came my way, those were the lovely years. View quote
Truman Capote
I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil. View quote
Truman Capote
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. View quote
Truman Capote
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. View quote
Truman Capote
To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make. View quote
Truman Capote
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. View quote
Truman Capote
Disco is the best floor show in town. It's very democratic, boys with boys, girls with girls, girls with boys, blacks and whites, capitalists and Marxists, Chinese and everything else, all in one big mix. View quote
Truman Capote
People who are having a love-sex relationship are continuously lying to each other because the very nature of the relationship demands that they do, because you have to make a love object of this person, which means that you editorialize about them. You know? You cut out what you don't want to see, you add this if it isn't there. And so therefore you're building a lie. But in a friendship you don't do that. You do exactly the reverse. You try more and more to be as completely pure and straight as you can be. (Truman Capote)
[You've said your material chooses you. ] That's the difference between the serious artist and the craftsman--the craftsman can take material and because of his abilities do a professional job of it. The serious artist, like Proust, is like an object caught by a wave and swept to shore. He's obsessed by his material; it's like a venom working in his blood and the art is the antidote. View quote
Truman Capote
A resident of over a hundred years in so narrow a world deserved higher homage. View quote
Truman Capote
There is considerable hypocrisy in conventionalism. Any thinking person is aware of this paradox; but in dealing with conventional people it is advantageous to treat them as though they were not hypocrites. It isn't a question of faithfulness to your own concepts; it is a matter of compromise so that you can remain an individual without the constant threat of conventional pressures. View quote
Truman Capote
Never trust a nigger: their minds and hair are full of kinks in equal measure. View quote
Truman Capote