In Cold Blood

by Truman Capote

Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there.

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

Nothing is more usual than to feel that others have shared in our failures, just as it is an ordinary reaction to forget those who have shared in our achievements.

Valley View Cemetery, that gray-and-green island of tombs and trees and flowered paths a restful, leafy, whispering oasis lying like a cool piece of cloud shade on the luminous wheat plains north of town.

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

“The rich never hang. Only the poor and friendless.”