When I am writing, I try to do it five hours a day but I spend about two of those just fooling… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
Are there any writers on the literary scene whom I consider truly great? Yes: Truman Capote. — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
That's all a writer has to write about - what he sees and hears and what not. — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
“Capote's rejoinder to Kerouac's assertion that he never needed to edit his work…"But, that's not writing . That's typing.” — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
If Francoise Sagan hadn't written a book called A Chateau in Sweden, I would certainly write a short story called A Chateau… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
Writing stopped being fun when I discovered the difference between good writing and bad and, even more terrifying, the difference between it… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
If you have a single narrator, a person like an "I" - "'I' did this" and "'I' did that" - it automatically… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine.… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
When seriously explored, the short story seems to me the most difficult and disciplining form of prose writing extant. Whatever control and… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
Intelligence alone can't make a good writer and style alone can't make a good writer - that is, not a really important… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
I will say only that all a writer has to work with is the material he has gathered as the result of… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
“I noticed a taxi stop across the street to let out a girl who ran up the steps of the Forty-second Street… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
“Thackeray's a good writer and Flaubert is a great artist. Trollope is a good writer and Dickens is a great artist. Colette… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
Since each story presents its own technical problems, obviously one can't generalize about them on a two-times-two-equals-four basis. Finding the right form… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
“she wanted to know what American writers I liked. "Hawthorne, Henry James, Emily Dickinson…" "No, living." Ah, well, hmm, let's see: how… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
“Very few authors, especially the unpublished, can resist an invitation to read aloud.” — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
“It was a tricky quality that suggested, well, magic and things read in books,” — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
I think I would have written five times as much as I've written if I didn't have this terrible sense of perfection. — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
I always felt that nobody was going to understand me, going to understand what I felt about things. I guess that's why… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
I think the only person a writer has an obligation to is himself. If what I write doesn't fulfill something in me,… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
I don't use a typewriter, I write longhand, with a pencil. Essentially I'm a horizontal writer. I think better when I'm lying… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
If you happen to capture my imagination for some reason and I decide to write about you and you don't like what… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
One of the most difficult things in writing a novel or anything at all is to choose the point of view from… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
I got this idea of doing a really serious big work-it would be precisely like a novel, with a single difference: Every… — Truman Capote Copy Share Image
“You can beat your brains out for her, and she’ll hand you horseshit on a platter.” — Truman Capote Copy Share
“The walls of the cell fell away, the sky came down, I saw the big yellow bird.” — Truman Capote Copy Share
There is really no practical help that one can offer; it is a matter of self-discovery, of one's own convictions, or working with one's… — Truman Capote Copy Share
“...Narcissus was so egotist...he was merely another of us who, in our unshatterable isolation, recognized, on seeing his reflection, the beautiful comrade, the only… — Truman Capote Copy Share
“Is it - I'm not certain - possible to love someone if your first interest is the use you can make of him? Doesn't… — Truman Capote Copy Share
One of the most difficult things in writing a novel or anything at all is to choose the point of view from which it's… — Truman Capote Copy Share
I've never worked for a newspaper. I've had some very bad reviews in newspapers. — Truman Capote Copy Share
But, my dear, so few things are fulfilled: what are most lives but a series of incompleted episodes? 'We work in the dark, we… — Truman Capote Copy Share
“…she, glittery voyager of secure destination, steamed down the harbor with whistles whistling and confetti in the air.” — Truman Capote Copy Share
“Because it's indeed difficult to portray, in any meaningful depth, another being, his appearance, speech, mentality, without to some degree, and often for quite… — truman capote Copy Share
“It's a bore, but the answer is good things only happen to you if you're good. Good? Honest is more what I mean. Not… — Truman Capote Copy Share
“In the courtyard there was an angel of black stone, and its angel head rose above giant elephant leaves; the stark glass angel eyes,… — Truman Capote Copy Share
