Truman Streckfus Persons (1924-1984), known by his pen name Truman Capote was an American author, playwright and screenwriter. His novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s was further immortalized by the homonymous film, starring Audrey Hepburn in the protagonist’s iconic role and his novel In Cold Blood is considered a landmark of popular culture.
1.”Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.”
2.”Certain shades of limelight wreck a girl’s complexion.”
3.”The brain may take advice, but not the heart.”
4.”Everybody has to feel superior to somebody … but it’s customary to present a little proof before you take the privilege.”
5.”So few things are fulfilled: what are most lives but a series of incomplete episodes.”
6.”It’s a scientific fact that if you stay in California you lose one point of your IQ every year.
7.”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.”
8.”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.”
9.”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.”
10.”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. ”
11.”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.”
12.”Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.”
13.”Well, I’m about as tall as a shotgun, and just as noisy.”
14.”It is the want to know the end that makes us believe in God, or witchcraft, believe, at least, in something.”
15.”All literature is gossip.”
16.”Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. ”
17.”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. ”
18.”It may be normal, darling; but I’d rather be natural.”
19.”But I’m not a saint yet. I’m an alcoholic. I’m a drug addict. I’m homosexual. I’m a genius.”
