01c. 1954 ADThe 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.Truman Capote / quote ↗
02c. 1954 ADSo 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, I'm afraid they're just indulging in wishful-thinking,Truman Capote / quote ↗
03c. 1954 ADYes: but aren't 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 it's just a matter of spreading her legs, almost any woman will do that for nothing.Truman Capote / quote ↗
04c. 1954 ADI 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.Truman Capote / quote ↗
05c. 1954 ADThe only rich women who ever interested me, the ones who were ever my friends, were adventuresses---people who were total self-creations.Truman Capote / quote ↗
06c. 1954 ADThe 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.Truman Capote / quote ↗
07c. 1954 ADWatching her, I remembered a girl I'd known in school, a grind, Mildred Grossman. Mildred: with her moist hair and greasy spectacles, her strained fingers that dissected frogs and carried coffee to picket lines, her flat eyes that only turned toward the stars to estimate their chemical tonnage. Earth and air could not be more opposite than Mildred and Holly, yet in my head they acquired a Siamese twinship, and the thread of thought that had sewn them together ran like this: the average personality reshapes frequently, every few years even our bodies undergo a complete overhaul--desirable or not, it is a natural thing that we should change. All right, here were two people who never would. That is what Mildred Grossman had in common with Holly Golightly. They would never change because they'd been given their character too soon; which, like sudden riches, leads to a lack of proportion: the one had splurged herself into a top-heavy realist, the other a lopsided romantic. I imagined them in a restaurant of the future, Mildred still studying the menu for its nutritional values, Holly still gluttonous for everything on it. It would never be different. They would walk through life and out of it with the same determined step that took small notice of those cliffs at the left.Truman Capote / quote ↗
08c. 1954 ADA very fine artist can take something quite ordinary and, through sheer artistry and willpower, turn it into a work of art.Truman Capote / quote ↗
09c. 1954 ADI think the argument that no whites are free of racism is quite erroneous. But then, on another level, does it really matter if anybody is free of any negative feeling about anything? No matter how much you love somebody, you know, there's some part of him you don't like.Truman Capote / quote ↗
10c. 1954 ADBut if you live your life without feeling and compassion for your fellowman—you are as an animal—'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' & happiness & peace of mind is not attained by living thus.Truman Capote / quote ↗
11c. 1954 ADSomewhere in this world there exists an exceptional philosopher named Florie Rotondo.The other day I came across one of her ruminations printed in a magazine devoted to the writings of schoolchildren. It said: “If I could do anything, I would go to the middle of our planet, Earth, and seek uranium, rubies, and gold. I'd look for Unspoiled Monsters. Then I'd move to the country. --Florie Rotondo, age 8.”Florie, honey, I know just what you mean – even if you don’t: how could you, age eight?Truman Capote / quote ↗
13c. 1954 ADStrange where our passions carry us, floggingly pursue us, forcing upon us unwanted dreams, unwelcome destinies.Truman Capote / quote ↗
14c. 1954 ADIf we know the past, and live the present, it is possible that we dream the future?Truman Capote / quote ↗
15c. 1954 ADFitzgerald has charm. It's a silly word, but it's an exact word for me. I like 'The Great Gatsby' and it's sad, gay nostalgia.Truman Capote / quote ↗
16c. 1954 ADRoyal summoned mourners. They came from the village, from the neighboring hills and, wailing like dogs at midnight, laid siege to the house. Old women beat their heads against the walls, moaning men prostrated themselves: it was the art of sorrow, and those who best mimicked grief were much admired. After the funeral everyone went away, satisfied that they'd done a good job.Truman Capote / quote ↗
17c. 1954 ADPerhaps, like most of us in a foreign country, he was incapable of placing people, selecting a frame for their picture, as he would at home; therefore all Americans had to be judged in a pretty equal light, and on this basis his companions appeared to be tolerable examples of local color and national character.Truman Capote / quote ↗
18c. 1954 ADSome cities, like wrapped boxes under Christmas trees, conceal unexpected gifts, secret delights. Some cities will always remain wrapped boxes, containers of riddles never to be solved, nor even to be seen by vacationing visitors, or, for that matter, the most inquisitive, persistent travelers.Truman Capote / quote ↗
20c. 1954 ADThe only obligation any artist can have is to himself. His works means nothing, otherwise. It has no meaning.Truman Capote / quote ↗
21c. 1954 ADThe walls of the cell fell away, the sky came down, I saw the big yellow bird.Truman Capote / quote ↗
22c. 1954 ADHot weather opens the skull of a city, exposing its white brain, and its heart of nerves, which sizzle like the wires inside a lightbulb. And there exudes a sour extra-human smell that makes the very stone seem flesh-alive, webbed and pulsing.Truman Capote / quote ↗
23c. 1954 ADThe answer is good things only happen to you if you're good. Good? Honest is more what I mean... Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart.Truman Capote / quote ↗
24c. 1954 ADA kind of silence, if I may say, was walking through the house, and, like most silence, it was not silent at all: it rapped on the doors, echoed in the clocks, creaked on the stairs, leaned forward to peer into my face and explode.Truman Capote / quote ↗
