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I will say only that all a writer has to work with is the material he has gathered as the result of his own endeavor and observations, and he cannot be denied the right to use it. Condemn, but not deny.

Truman Capote

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Truman Capote
Age: 59 †
Born: 1924
Born: September 30
Died: 1984
Died: August 25
Actor
Artist
Author
Autobiographer
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
New Orleans
Louisiana
Truman Streckfus Persons
Truman Garcia Capote
Writer
Condemn
Results
Denied
Use
Endeavor
Cannot
Observation
Right
Deny
Work
Material
Result
Observations
Materials
Gathered

More quotes by Truman Capote

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Writing in the first person automatically gives you a point of view.
Truman Capote
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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
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I got this idea of doing a really serious big work-it would be precisely like a novel, with a single difference: Every word of it would be true from beginning to end.
Truman Capote
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It's bad enough in life to do without something YOU want but confound it, what gets my goat is not being able to give somebody something you want THEM to have.
Truman Capote
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Here is a hall without exit, a tunnel without end.
Truman Capote
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But mostly they were lies I told it wasn't my fault, I couldn't remember, because it was as though I'd been to one of those supernatural castles visited by characters in legends: once away, you do not remember, all that is left is the ghostly echo of haunting wonder.
Truman Capote
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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
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A boy has to peddle his book.
Truman Capote
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Jay Sebring cut my hair a couple of times.
Truman Capote
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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
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Never demean yourself by talking back to a critic, never. Write those letters to the editor in your head, but don't put them on paper.
Truman Capote
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Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.
Truman Capote
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I'll wager at the end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself. That things as they are -- her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites and grass and Queenie pawing earth over her bone - just what they've always seen, was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes.
Truman Capote
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I'm scarcely an enfant!
Truman Capote
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The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love, having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, no matter, it will rise and find the surface.
Truman Capote
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The instant she saw the letter she squinted her eyes and bent her lips in a tough tiny smile that advanced her age immeasurably. Darling, she instructed me, would you reach in the drawer there and give me my purse. A girl doesn't read this sort of thing without her lipstick.
Truman Capote
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They can romanticize us so, mirrors, and that is their secret: what a subtle torture it would be to destroy all the mirrors in the world: where then could we look for reassurance of our identities?
Truman Capote
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I'll pay you a million dollars if you tell your life story for true.
Truman Capote
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we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I.
Truman Capote
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Sometimes when I think how good my book can be, I can hardly breathe.
Truman Capote