Truman Capote Quotes - Page 3

A work of art is one of mystery, the one extreme magic; everything else is either arithmetic or biology.

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

I will say only that all a writer has to work with is the material he has gathered as the result of his own endeavor and observations, and he cannot be denied the right to use it. Condemn, but not deny.

I just live one day at a time. That's my new theory in life.

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

Most secrets should never be told, but especially those that are more menacing to the listener than to the teller.

I always felt that nobody was going to understand me, going to understand what I felt about things. I guess that's why I started writing. At least on paper I could put down what I thought.

It's bad enough in life to do without something YOU want; but confound it, what gets my goat is not being able to give somebody something you want THEM to have.

Sometimes when I think how good my book can be, I can hardly breathe.

The most dangerous thing in the world is to make a friend of an Englishman, because he'll come sleep in your closet rather than spend 10 shillings on a hotel.

You can’t give your heart to a wild thing.

Good writing is rewriting.

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

How do I look so young? Quite simple: a complete vegetable diet, 12 hours sleep a night, and lots and lots of make-up.

It may be normal, darling; but I'd rather be natural.

If there is no mystery, for the artist, to solve inside of his art, then there's no point in it....for me, every act of the art of solving a mystery.

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

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

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.

Shoot, boy, the country's just fulla folks what knows everything, and don't understand nothing, just fullofem.

Fame is only good for one thing - they will cash your check in a small town.

What we want most is to be held...and told..that everything (everything is a funny thing, is baby milk and papa's eyes, is roaring logs on a cold morning, is hoot owls and the boy who makes you cry after school, is mama's long hair, is being afraid and twisted faces on the bedroom wall)...is going to be alright.

When seriously explored, the short story seems to me the most difficult and disciplining form of prose writing extant. Whatever control and technique I may have I owe entirely to my training in this medium.

Oh, I adore to cook. It makes me feel so mindless in a worthwhile way.

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.