Truman Capote Quotes

As a child, I was taught that it was bad manners to bring attention to yourself, and to never, ever make a spectacle of yourself ... All of which I've earned a living doing.

I sometimes worry about my short attention span, but not for long.

It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind.

Satire, though it may exaggerate the vice it lashes, is not justified in creating it in order that it may be lashed.

I look as young as a person can look given how old I am.

Least at thine own things laugh.

We find in the novella a seamless interweaving of at least two narrative voices, one of which is that of an observer so sympathetic that his language appears to be Aschenbach's own, the other of which is superficially celebratory (except at the moment of moralistic condemnation) but undercuts Aschenbach by means of an ironic detachment.

When will I learn? The answers to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle. They're on TV!

I can't do negative, needy, or narcissistic anymore. Oh wait, I can still do the last one, aw nuts.

I have no policy, for or against: only a personal style. Which is to say, I use them when I think it's appropriate to; for example, an internal monologue by a locquacious and verbose narrator is more likely to be larded with adverbs than an exchange of instant messages between cops at a crime scene.

Behind him the Master of Ceremonies cleared his throat. His eyes took on a distant, glazed look.The Stealer of Souls, he said in the faraway voice of one whose ears aren't hearing what his mouth is saying, Defeater of Empires, Swallower of Oceans, Thief of Years, The Ultimate Reality, Harvester of Mankind, the-ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT. I CAN SEE MYSELF IN.

Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself

If ridicule were employed to laugh men out of vice and folly, it might be of some use.

Obviously I was either onto something, or on something.

Keep in mind that I'm crazy, won't you?

I, along with the critics, have never taken myself very seriously.

I am alive and well and unconcerned about the rumors of my death. But if I were dead, I would be the last to know.

I kinda feel like an idiot sometimes. Although I am an idiot, so it kinda works out.

I am a fool, I know it; and yet, Heaven help me, I'm poor enough to be a wit.

I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.

The trouble with talking about irony is, it's such a slippery thing that the second you start talking about it, you're a better example of it than you are an analyst.

I was born modest; not all over, but in spots.

When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself.

You must come to terms with your wholeself. the wholeness which exceeds all our virtue and all our vice.

Do you laugh in the right places? Then, you’ll get along, in fair weather or foul. Humor is nothing less than a sense of the fitness of things. Something that’s out of proportion, like an inflated ego, should strike you funny, particularly if it’s your own inflated ego. Otherwise you are pathetic and quite hopeless.