Truman Capote citáty

„Více slz bývá prolito nad vyslyšenými modlitbami, než nad nevyslyšenými.“

—  Truman Capote

Epigraf (nedokončený)

„Nestarám se, co o mně kdo řekne. Pokud to ovšem není pravda.“

—  Truman Capote

Originál: (en) I don't care what anybody says about me as long as it isn't true.
Zdroj: Tison Pugh, Truman Capote: A Literary Life at the Movies, University of Georgia Press, 2014, s. 41

„Člověk, který nesní, je jako člověk, který se nepotí: střádá v sobě spoustu jedu.“

—  Truman Capote

„Realista je člověk, který má správný odstup od svých ideálů.“

—  Truman Capote

„Úspěch je skoro to poslední, co se člověku odpouští.“

—  Truman Capote

„Duši mají jen vrahové.“

—  Truman Capote

„I ought at least to have made corporal. But I never did. Know why? Because the sergeant we had was tough. Because I wouldn't roll over. Jesus, I hate that stuff. I can't stand it. Though—I don't know. Some queers I really liked. As long as they didn't try anything. The most worthwhile friend I ever had, really sensitive and intelligent, he turned out to be queer.“

—  Truman Capote, kniha In Cold Blood

Perry Smith, part 2
In Cold Blood (1965)

„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 know? 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. But in a friendship you don't do that. You do exactly the reverse. You try more and more to be as completely pure and straight as you can be.“

—  Truman Capote

From a 1970 interview

„Never trust a nigger: their minds and hair are full of kinks in equal measure.“

—  Truman Capote, kniha Other Voices, Other Rooms

Miss Amy
Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948)

„Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.“

—  Truman Capote

From a 1957 interview

„All writing, all art, is an act of faith. If one tries to contribute to human understanding, how can that be called decadent? It's like saying a declaration of love is an act of decadence. Any work of art, provide it springs from a sincere motivation to further understanding between people, is an act of faith and therefore is an act of love.“

—  Truman Capote

From a 1952 interview

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

—  Truman Capote

Reported in Steven D. Price, 1001 Greatest Things Ever Said About California (2007), p. viii.

„More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.“

—  Truman Capote

Disputed

„Disco is the best floor show in town. It's very democratic, boys with boys, girls with girls, girls with boys, blacks and whites, capitalists and Marxists, Chinese and everything else, all in one big mix.“

—  Truman Capote

Quoted in The London Review of Books http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n01/hasl02_.html (6 January 2000)

„There is considerable hypocrisy in conventionalism. Any thinking person is aware of this paradox; but in dealing with conventional people it is advantageous to treat them as though they were not hypocrites. It isn't a question of faithfulness to your own concepts; it is a matter of compromise so that you can remain an individual without the constant threat of conventional pressures.“

—  Truman Capote, kniha In Cold Blood

Willy-Jay
In Cold Blood (1965)

„I thought that Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman. I thought so right up to the moment that I cut his throat.“

—  Truman Capote, kniha In Cold Blood

Perry Smith
In Cold Blood (1965)

„The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call “out there.“

—  Truman Capote, kniha In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood (1965)

„Just remember: If one bird carried every grain of sand, grain by grain, across the ocean, by the time he got them all on the other side, that would only be the beginning of eternity.“

—  Truman Capote, kniha In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood (1965)

„It seemed odd to Joel that nature did not reflect so solemn an event: flowers of cotton-boll clouds within a sky as scandalously blue as kitten-eyes were offensive to their sweet disrespect.“

—  Truman Capote, kniha Other Voices, Other Rooms

At Jesus Fever's funeral
Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948)