Truman Capote Said

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.
Truman Capote

All literature is gossip.
Truman Capote

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.
Truman Capote

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

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

Friendship is a pretty full-time occupation if you really are friendly with somebody. You can't have too many friends because then you're just not really friends.
Truman Capote

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

I can see every monster as they come in.
Truman Capote

I don't care what anybody says about me as long as it isn't true.
Truman Capote

I got this idea of doing a really serious big work-it would be precisely like a novel, with a single difference: Every word of it would be true from beginning to end.
Truman Capote

I like to talk on TV about those things that aren't worth writing about.
Truman Capote

I was eleven, then I was sixteen. Though no honors came my way, those were the lovely years.
Truman Capote

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

Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.
Truman Capote

Love is a chain of love as nature is a chain of life.
Truman Capote

Mick Jagger is about as sexy as a pissing toad.
Truman Capote

My major regret in life is that my childhood was unnecessarily lonely.
Truman Capote

No one will ever know what 'In Cold Blood' took out of me. It scraped me right down to the marrow of my bones. It nearly killed me. I think, in a way, it did kill me.
Truman Capote

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

That isn't writing at all, it's typing.
Truman Capote

That's not writing, that's typing.
Truman Capote

The quietness of his tone italicized the malice of his reply.
Truman Capote

To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.
Truman Capote

Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.
Truman Capote

Well, I'm about as tall as a shotgun, and just as noisy.
Truman Capote

When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended for self-flagellation solely.
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.
Truman Capote

Writing stopped being fun when I discovered the difference between good writing and bad and, even more terrifying, the difference between it and true art. And after that, the whip came down.
Truman Capote