Are there any writers on the literary scene whom I consider truly great? Yes: Truman Capote. Truman Capote More Quotes by Truman Capote More Quotes From Truman Capote I always write the end of everything first. I always write the last chapters of my books before I write the beginning....Then I go back to the beginning. I mean, it's always nice to know where you're going is my theory. Truman Capote nice writing book Champagne does have one regular drawback: swilled as a regular thing a certain sourness settles in the tummy, and the result is permanent bad breath. Really incurable. Truman Capote champagne-drinking alcohol doe There's lots of things you don't know. All kinds of strange things . . . mostly they happened before we were born: that makes them seem to me so much more real. Truman Capote strange kind real Love should be allowed. I’m all for it. Now that I’ve got a pretty good idea what it is. Truman Capote good-ideas should ideas There’s got to be something wrong with us. To do what we did. Truman Capote What I do requires fantastic concentration... but you can't be totally alone, or you lose all contact with reality, so even when I'm engrossed and secluded, Jack Dunphy can be there. He's my oldest and best friend, and best critic too. Truman Capote mentor fantastic reality People who are having a love-sex relationship are continuously lying to each other because the very nature of the relationship demands that they do, because you have to make a love object of this person, which means that you editorialize about them. You cut out what you don't want to see, you add this if it isn't there. And so therefore you're building a lie. Truman Capote mean lying sex The only obligation any artist can have is to himself. His work means nothing, otherwise. It has no meaning. Truman Capote obligation artist mean Dizzy with excitement is no mere phrase. Truman Capote dizzy excitement phrases She was a triumph over ugliness, so often more beguiling than real beauty, if only because it contains paradox. Truman Capote paradox triumph real Talent is a valued tormentor. Truman Capote talent Sicily is more beautiful than any woman. Truman Capote beautiful One day, I started writing, not knowing that I had chained myself for life to a noble but merciless master. When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended solely for self-flagellation... I'm here alone in my dark madness, all by myself with my deck of cards - and, of course, the whip God gave me. Truman Capote self dark writing all his prayers of the past had been simple concrete requests: God, give me a bicycle, a knife with seven blades, a box of oil paints. Only how, how, could you say something so indefinite, so meaningless as this: God, let me be loved. Truman Capote simple prayer past I know the next best thing is often the very best. Truman Capote best-things next knows The quietness of his tone italicized the malice of his reply. Truman Capote quietness malice tone 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 despair self forget He’d always been willing to confess his faults, for, by admitting them, it was as if he made them no longer exist. Truman Capote admitting faults made But I'm not a saint yet. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a drug addict. I'm homosexual. I'm a genius. Truman Capote drug alcohol drinking There is such an animal as a nonstylist, only they're not writers - they're typists. Truman Capote animal
