Truman Capote - In Cold Blood (1966)

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The quietness of his tone italicized the malice of his reply.

Truman Capote
The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them.

Truman Capote
I was terribly sure trees and flowers were the same as birds or people. That they thought things and talked among themselves. And we could hear them if we really tried. It was just a matter of emptying your head of all other sounds. Being very quiet and listening very hard. Sometimes I still believe that. But one can never get quiet enough...

Truman Capote
Imagination, of course, can open any door - turn the key and let terror walk right in.

Truman Capote
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
I didn't want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat.

Truman Capote
In the disposition of capital cases in the United States, the median elapsed time between sentence and execution is approximately seventeen months. [...] However, even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American jurisprudence amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune [...].

Truman Capote
Even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American jurisprudence amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune, a game of chance, somewhat fixed in favor of the criminal, that the participants play interminably.

Truman Capote
It is no shame to have a dirty face- the shame comes when you keep it dirty.

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

Truman Capote
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
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
She had said she was afraid of Perry, and she was, but was it simply Perry she feared, or was it a configuration of which he was part [...]? The eldest, the brother she loved, had shot himself; Fern had fallen out of a window, or jumped; and Perry was committed to violence, a criminal.

Truman Capote
Nancy clutter is always in a hurry, but she always has time. And that is the definition of a lady.

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
Envy was constantly with him; the Enemy was anyone who was someone he wanted to be or who had anything he wanted to have.

Truman Capote
As long as you live, there's always something waiting; and even if it's bad, and you know it's bad, what can you do? You can't stop living.

Truman Capote
I've tried to believe, but I don't, I can't, and there's no use pretending.

Truman Capote