Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories: House of Flowers, A Diamond Guitar, and A Christmas Memory

by Truman Capote

You can love somebody without it being like that. You keep them a stranger, a stranger who’s a friend.”

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 pineywoods 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 had dried, after the sun had gone and there were lighted windows in the dusk.

and enough wine to wash an elephant. Listen, you can throw

I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany’s.

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. I’ve thought maybe after the war, Fred and I—” She pushed up her dark glasses, and her eyes, the differing colors of them, the grays and wisps of blue and green, had taken on a far-seeing sharpness.

She was a triumph over ugliness, so often more beguiling than real beauty, if only because it contains paradox.

the average personality reshapes frequently, every few years even our bodies undergo a complete overhaul—desirable or not, it is a natural thing that we should change.

Right up till the last minute Doc thought I was going to go with him. Even though I kept telling him: But, Doc, I’m not fourteen any more, and I’m not Lulamae. But the terrible part is (and I realized it while we were standing there) I am. I’m still stealing turkey eggs and running through a brier patch. Only now I call it having the mean reds.”

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.”

“I’m very scared, Buster. Yes, at last. Because it could go on forever. Not knowing what’s yours until you’ve thrown it away.