Truman Capote Quotes

1924–1984 United States

Truman Garcia Capote (30 September 1924 – 25 August 1984), born Truman Streckfus Persons, was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and actor.

United States
Actors
Memoirists
Non-fiction authors
Novelists

Also known as: Capote, Truman, Answered Prayers, In Cold Blood, Local Color, Other Voices, Other Rooms (novel)

Random Truman Capote quote

22 quotes

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

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

Truman Capote: Conversations (1987)

More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.

Never trust a nigger: their minds and hair are full of kinks in equal measure.

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.

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

In Cold Blood (1965)

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.

A resident of over a hundred years in so narrow a world deserved higher homage.

“They [the Clutters] never hurt me. Like other people. Like people have all my life. Maybe it's just that the Clutters were the ones who had to pay for it.”

In Cold Blood (1965)

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

In Cold Blood (1965)

Envy was constantly with him; the Enemy was anyone who was someone he wanted to be or who had anything he wanted to have.

In Cold Blood (1965)

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

“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.”

In Cold Blood (1965)

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.

Truman Capote: Conversations (1987)

It seemed odd to Joel that nature did not reflect so solemn an event: flowers of cotton-boll clouds within a sky as scandalously blue as kitten-eyes were offensive to their sweet disrespect.

New York is the only real city-city.

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.

Local Color (1950)

I wouldn't roll over. Jesus, I hate that stuff.

Answered Prayers (1986)

She beckoned to him, shining and silver, and he knew he must go: unafraid, not hesitating, he paused only at the garden's edge, as though he'd forgotten something, he stopped and looked back at the bloomless, descending blue, at the boy he had left behind.

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.

Truman Capote: Conversations (1987)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Truman Capote (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.