Jesse Harp > Jesse's Quotes

“But if Miss Golightly remained unconscious of my existence, except as a doorbell convenience, I became, through the summer, rather an authority on hers. I discovered, from observing the trash-basket outside her door, that her regular reading consisted of tabloids and travel folders and astrological charts; that she smoked an esoteric cigarette called Picayunes; survived on cottage cheese and Melba Toast; that her vari-colored hair was somewhat self-induced. The same source made it evident that she received V-letters by the bale. They were torn into strips like bookmarks. I used occasionally to pluck myself a bookmark in passing. Remember and miss you and rain and please write and damn and goddamn were the words that recurred most often on these slips; those, and lonesome and love.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“I've got to stay awake,' she said, punching her cheeks until the roses came. 'There isn't time to sleep, I'd look consumptive, I'd sag like a tenement, and that wouldn't be fair: a girl can't go to Sing Sing with a green face.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's

“The mean reds are horrible. You're afraid and you sweat like hell but you don't know what you're afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen only you don't know what it is.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“She was still hugging the cat. “Poor slob,” she said, tickling his head, “poor slob without a name. It’s a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven’t any right to give him one: He’ll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of hooked up by the river one day, we don’t belong to each other. He’s an independent, and so am I. I don’t want to own anything until I know I’ve found a place where me and things belong together.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“But there were moments when she played songs that made you wonder where she learned them, where indeed she came from. Harsh-tender wandering tunes with words that smacked of pinewoods or prairie. One went: Don’t wanna sleep, Don’t wanna die, Just wanna go a-travelin’ through the pastures of the sky; and this one seemed to gratify her the most, for often she continued it long after her hair hard dried, after the sun had gone and there were lighted windows in the dusk.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“Wrinkles and bones, white hair and diamonds: I can't wait.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“I’ve tried that. I’ve tried aspirin, too. Rusty thinks I should smoke marijuana, and I did for a while, but it only makes me giggle. What I’ve found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany’s. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany’s, then I’d buy some furniture and give the cat a name.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“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 lawtype honest--I'd rob a grave, I'd steal two-bits off a dead man's eyes if I thought it would contribute to the day's enjoyment--but unto-thyself-type honest. Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart. Which isn't being pious. Just practical. Cancer may cool you, but the other's sure to.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Short Novel and Three Stories

“There's so few things men can talk about. If a man doesn't like baseball, then he must like horses, and if he doesn't like either of them, well, I'm in trouble anyway: he don't like girls.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell,’ Holly advised him. ‘That was Doc’s mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can’t give your heart to a wild thing; the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they’re strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That’s how you’ll end up Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You’ll end up looking at the sky.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“Those final weeks, spanning end of summer and the beginning of another autumn, are blurred in memory, perhaps because our understanding of each other had reached that sweet depth where two people communicate more often in silence than in words: an affectionate quietness replaces the tensions, the unrelaxed chatter and chasing about that produce a friendship’s more showy, more, in the surface sense, dramatic moments.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“you got to want it to be good, and I don't want it.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“I suppose you think I'm very brazen. Or très fou. Or something.'
Not at all.'
She seemed disappointed. 'Yes, you do. Everybody does. I don't mind. It's useful.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“Lively, too. Talky as a jaybird. With something smart to say on every subject: better than the radio.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell,' Holly advised him. 'That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky."
"She's drunk," Joe Bell informed me.
"Moderately," Holly confessed....Holly lifted her martini. "Let's wish the Doc luck, too," she said, touching her glass against mine. "Good luck: and believe me, dearest Doc -- it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“It’s better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“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, Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Short Novel and Three Stories

“Leave it to me: I'm always top banana in the shock department.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's

“Home is where you feel at home. I'm still looking.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“Don't wanna sleep, don't wanna die, just wanna go a-travellin' through the pastures of the sky”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“Reading dreams. That's what started her walking down the road. Every day she'd walk a little further: a mile, and come home. Two miles, and come home. One day she just kept on.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“It should take you about four seconds to walk from here to the door. I'll give you two.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“But it's Sunday, Mr. Bell. Clocks are slow on Sundays.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“For all her chic thinness, she had an almost breakfast-cereal air of health, a soap-and-lemon cleanness, a rough pink darkening of the cheeks.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“But the address, if it ever existed, never was sent, which made me sad, there was so much I wanted to write her: that I'd sold two stories, had read where the Trawlers were countersuing for divorce, was moving out of the brownstone because it was haunted. But mostly, I wanted to tell about her cat. I had kept my promise; I had found him. It took weeks of after-work roaming through those Spanish Harlem streets, and there were many false alarms--flashes of tiger-striped fur that, upon inspection, were not him. But one day, one cold sunshiny Sunday winter afternoon, it was. Flanked by potted plants and framed by clean lace curtains, he was seated in the window of a warm-looking room: I wondered what his name was, for I was certain he had one now, certain he'd arrived somewhere he belonged. African hut or whatever, I hope Holly has, too.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“She was never without dark glasses, she was always well groomed, there was a consequential good taste in the plainness of her clothes, the blues and grays and lack of luster that made her, herself, shine so.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“Good luck and believe me, dearest Doc - it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved