Top 400 Truman Capote Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “It’s better to look at the sky than live there.”

— Truman Capote

52. “You exist in a half-world suspended between two superstructures, one self-expression and the other self-destruction. You are strong, but there is a flaw in your strength, and unless you can learn how to control it the flaw will prove stronger than your strength and defeat you.”

— Truman Capote

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

— Truman Capote

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

— Truman Capote

55. “Dizzy with excitement is no mere phrase.”

— Truman Capote

56. “Leave it to me: I’m always top banana in the shock department.”

— Truman Capote

57. “Oh Jesus God we did belong to each other. He was mine.”

— Truman Capote

58. “Maybe the older you grow and the less easy it is to put thought into action, maybe that’s why it gets all locked up in your head and becomes a burden.”

— Truman Capote

59. “Actually, I think friendship and love are exactly the same thing.”

— Truman Capote

60. “A man who doesn’t dream is like a man who doesn’t sweat. He stores up a lot of poison.”

— Truman Capote

61. “The only obligation any artist can have is to himself. His work means nothing, otherwise. It has no meaning.”

— Truman Capote

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

— Truman Capote

63. “I was eleven, then I was sixteen. Though no honors came my way, those were the lovely years.”

— Truman Capote

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

— Truman Capote

65. “Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.”

— Truman Capote

66. “I don’t think I’ve ever drunk champagne before breakfast before. With breakfast on several occasions, but never before before.”

— Truman Capote

67. “So,” he said, “what do you think: is she or ain’t she?” “Ain’t she what?” “A phony.” “I wouldn’t have thought so.” “You’re wrong. She is a phony. But on the other hand you’re right. She isn’t a phony because she’s a real phony. She believes all this crap she believes. You can’t talk her out of it. I’ve tried with tears running down my cheeks.”

— Truman Capote

68. “Bun? Cinstit ar fi mai aproape de ce vreau sa spun. Adica nu cinstit in sensul legii – as jefui un mormant, as fura banutii de pe ochii mortilor daca mi-as inchipui ca asta mi-ar inveseli ziua –, vreau sa spun cinstit fata de tine insuti. Sa fii oricem, dar nu un las, un prefacut, un escroc sentimental, o curva; mai degraba as vrea sa am cancer decat o inima necinstita.”

— Truman Capote

69. “The problem with living outside the law is that you no longer have its protection.”

— Truman Capote

70. “Nancy clutter is always in a hurry, but she always has time. And that is the definition of a lady.”

— Truman Capote

71. “Those fellows, they’re always crying over killers. Never a thought for the victims.”

— Truman Capote

72. “New York is the only real city-city.”

— Truman Capote

73. “I despise people who can’t control themselves.”

— Truman Capote

74. “Aprils have never meant much to me, autumns seem that season of beginning, spring.”

— Truman Capote

75. “And in this moment, like a swift intake of breath, the rain came.”

— Truman Capote

76. “A beautiful day with the buoyancy of a bird.”

— Truman Capote

77. “Reading dreams. That’s what started her walking down the road. Every day she’d walk a little further: a mile, and come home. Two miles, and come home. One day she just kept on.”

— Truman Capote

78. “She had only one flaw. She was perfect, otherwise whe was perfect.”

— Truman Capote

79. “You’re wrong. She is a phony. But on the other hand you’re right. She isn’t a phony because she’s a real phony. She believes all this crap she believes. You can’t talk her out of it.”

— Truman Capote

80. “I loved her enough to forget myself, my self pitying despairs, and be content that something she thought happy was going to happen.”

— Truman Capote

81. “The quietness of his tone italicized the malice of his reply.”

— Truman Capote

82. “But it’s Sunday, Mr. Bell. Clocks are slow on Sundays.”

— Truman Capote

83. “I don’t mean I’d mind being rich and famous. That’s very much on my schedule, and someday I’ll try to get around to it; but if it happens, I’d like to have my ego tagging along. I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

— Truman Capote

84. “Don’t wanna sleep, don’t wanna die, just wanna go a-travellin’ through the pastures of the sky.”

— Truman Capote

85. “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.”

— Truman Capote

86. “There are certain shades of limelight that can wreck a girl’s complexion.”

— Truman Capote

87. “Never demean yourself by talking back to a critic, never. Write those letters to the editor in your head, but don’t put them on paper.”

— Truman Capote

88. “It is easy to ignore the rain if you have a raincoat.”

— Truman Capote

89. “So the days, the last days, blow about in a memory, hazy autumnal, all alike as leaves: until a day unlike any other I’ve lived.”

— Truman Capote

90. “She was a triumph over ugliness, so often more beguiling than real beauty, if only because it contains paradox.”

— Truman Capote

91. “Good luck and believe me, dearest Doc – it’s better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.”

— Truman Capote

92. “Brazil was beastly but Buenos Aires the best. Not Tiffany’s, but almost.”

— Truman Capote

93. “I told you: you can make yourself love anybody.”

— Truman Capote

94. “When you’ve got nowhere to turn, turn on the gas.”

— Truman Capote

95. “The brain may take advice, but not the heart.”

— Truman Capote

96. “I’ve tried to believe, but I don’t, I can’t, and there’s no use pretending.”

— Truman Capote

97. “Of many magics, one is watching a beloved sleep: free of eyes and awareness, you for a sweet moment hold the heart of him; helpless, he is then all, and however irrationally, you have trusted him to be, man-pure, child-tender.”

— Truman Capote

98. “There were hints of sunrise on the rim of the sky, yet it was still dark, and the traces of morning color were like goldfish swimming in ink.”

— Truman Capote

99. “I couldn’t understand a sense of unease that multiplied until I could hear my heart beating.”

— Truman Capote

100. “You don’t run out on people; you run out on yourself.”

— Truman Capote