Quotes by Truman Capote

Once a thing is set to happen, all you can do is hope it wont. Or will-depending. As long as you live, there’s always something waiting, and even if it’s bad, and you know its bad, what can you do? You can’t stop living.

To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what its about, but the music the words make.

You cant blame a writer for what the characters say.

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

I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.

Its a very excruciating life facing that blank piece of paper every day and having to reach up somewhere into the clouds and bring something down out of them.

That isnt writing at all, its typing.

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

I know its become fashionable to depict the police as sadistic Cossacks riding down innocent citizens, but Ive become well enough acquainted with law-enforcement agencies across the country to know thats just not the case. Of course, a certain small percentage of policemen are irresponsible...but that doesnt justify the current unjust barrage of propaganda against a tribe of men who are hard-working, underpaid and daily risking their lives to protect us. Im sure there are isolated instances of police brutality, but the rising crime rate and urban violence constitute a far, far more pressing problem.

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavour.

When he was in the army hed picked up a great many girls: sometimes nothing happened except a lot of talk, and that was all right too: because it didnt matter what you said to them, for in those transient moments lies or truth were arbitrary and you were whatever you wanted to be.

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 cant have too many friends because then youre just not really friends.

Dont wanna sleep, dont wanna die, just wanna go a-travelin through the pastures of the sky.

The trouble with all these far-right and far-left mentalities is that they can encompass only one side of an argument and are congenitally incapable of holding two opinions in their heads at the same time.

So if black power means black armies racing through the streets, creating havoc, that certainly does nothing to advance the legitimate political and economic aspirations of the black community. Just the opposite, in fact....If they think a few Molotov cocktails are going to bring down the whole system and build something new, Im afraid theyre just indulging in wishful-thinking,

Yes: but arent love and marriage notoriously synonymous in the minds of most women? Certainly very few men get the first without promising the second: love, that is--if its just a matter of spreading her legs, almost any woman will do that for nothing.

I have an extremely strong, masculine mind and a feminine sensibility level, which is kind of an unusual combination. Both men and women tell me things and I can relate on two levels simultaneously.

The only rich women who ever interested me, the ones who were ever my friends, were adventuresses---people who were total self-creations.

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.