In Cold Blood

by Truman Capote

Of what were they frightened? “It might happen again.”

And after dark, when the wind commences, that hateful prairie wind, one hears the most appalling moans. I mean, if one’s a bit nervy, one can’t help imagining—silly things.

IT IS NO SHAME TO HAVE A DIRTY FACE—THE SHAME COMES WHEN YOU KEEP IT DIRTY.

You are a human being with a free will. Which puts you above the animal level. But if you live your life without feeling and compassion for your fellowman—you are as an animal—“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” & happiness & peace of mind is not attained by living thus.

“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is a breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is as the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”—Said by Chief Crowfoot, Blackfoot Indian Chief.

A la Logan Roy

Man was nothing, a mist, a shadow absorbed by shadows.