Music for Chameleons Quotes

“But I'm not a saint yet. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a drug addict. I'm homosexual. I'm a genius.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“We all, sometimes, leave each other there under the skies, and we never understand why.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“Strange where our passions carry us, floggingly pursue us, forcing upon us unwanted dreams, unwelcome destinies.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“Some cities, like wrapped boxes under Christmas trees, conceal unexpected gifts, secret delights. Some cities will always remain wrapped boxes, containers of riddles never to be solved, nor even to be seen by vacationing visitors, or, for that matter, the most inquisitive, persistent travelers.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“Empecé a escribir cuando tenia ocho años,entonces no sabia que me había encadenado de por vida a un noble pero implacable amo... Cuando Dios le entrega a uno un don, también le da a uno un látigo. Y el látigo es únicamente para autoflagelarse”.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“I'm praying for you, Mary. I want you to live forever.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“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, Music for Chameleons

“Of course, I failed in several of the areas I invaded, but it is true that one learns more from a failure than one does from a success.”
― Truman Capote, Music For Chameleons

“Great fury, like great whiskey, requires long fermentation.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“Her power resided in her attitude: she behaved as though she believed she was irresistible; and whatever her opportunities may have been, the style of the woman implied an erotic history complete with footnotes.”
― Truman Capote, Music For Chameleons

“When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended for self-flagellation solely.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“Strange where our passions carry us, floggingly pursue us, forcing upon us unwanted dreams, unwelcome destinies.

Her alleged abilities to sift the sands of daydreams until she produced the solid stuff, golden realities.

Her power resided in her attitude: she behaved as though she believed she was irresistible.

She sounds the way bananas taste.

Some cities, like wrapped boxes under Christmas trees, conceal unexpected gifts, secret delights. Some cities will always remain wrapped boxes, containers of riddles never to be solved, nor even to be seen by vacationing visitors, or, for that matter, the most inquisitive, persistent travelers. To know such cities, to unwrap them, as it were, one has to have been born there. Venice is like that.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“It all began in Harry’s Bar, as so many Venetian escapades do.”
― Truman Capote, Music For Chameleons

“Anxiety, as any expensive psychiatrist will tell you, is caused by depression; but depression, as the same psychiatrist will inform you on a second visit and an additional fee, is caused by anxiety.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“Truman Capote : You promised me champagne, remember?

Marilyn Monroe : I remember. But I don’t have any money.

TC : You’re always late and you never have any money. By any chance are you under the delusion that you’re Queen Elizabeth?

Marilyn : Who?

TC : Queen Elizabeth. The Queen of England.

Marilyn (frowning) : What’s that cunt got to do with it?

TC : Queen Elizabeth never carries money either. She’s not allowed to. Filthy lucre must not stain the royal palm. It’s a law or something.

Marilyn : Well, gosh. How does she pay for anything? Like when she goes shopping.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“Truman Capote : What is your own sense of morality? How do you differentiate between good and bad?

Robert Beausoleil (a close associate of Charles Manson) : Good and bad? It’s all good. If it happens, it’s got to be good. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be happening. It’s just the way life flows. Moves together. I move with it. I don’t question it.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“Graham Greene was a first-class writer. Until the Vatican grabbed him.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“used to drink every night. Every night I drank a bottle of tequila and went to bed and slept like a baby. I was never sick a day; I looked good, I felt good, I slept well. No more. Now I have one cold after the other, headaches, arthritis; and I can’t sleep a wink. All because the doctor said I had to stop drinking tequila. But don’t jump to conclusions. I’m not a drunk. You can take all the wine and whiskey in the world and dump it down the Grand Canyon. It’s only that I like tequila.”
― Truman Capote, Music For Chameleons

“I know how trite this is, Jaime. And for the moment certainly no help at all. But remember—there’s always somebody else. Just don’t look for the same person, that’s all.”
― Truman Capote, Music For Chameleons

“Vivimos en la oscuridad, hacemos lo que podemos, el resto es la demencia del arte.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“Empecé a escribir cuando tenía ocho años: de improviso, sin inspirarme en ejemplo alguno. No conocía a nadie que escribiese y a poca gente que leyese. Pero el caso era que sólo me interesaban cuatro cosas: leer libros, ir al cine, bailar claqué y hacer dibujos. Entonces, un día comencé a escribir, sin saber que me había encadenado de por vida a un noble pero implacable amo. Cuando Dios le entrega a uno un don, también le da un látigo; y el látigo es únicamente para autoflagelarse.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“Así como algunos jóvenes practican el piano o el violín cuatro o cinco horas diarias, igual me ejercitaba yo con mis plumas y papeles.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“Al principio fue muy divertido. Dejó de serlo cuando averigüé la diferencia entre escribir bien y mal; y luego hice otro descubrimiento mas alarmante todavía: la diferencia entre escribir bien y el arte verdadero; es sutil, pero brutal. ¡Y, después de aquello, cayó el látigo!”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“Entonces, un día comencé a escribir, sin saber que me había encadenado de por vida a un noble pero implacable amo. Cuando Dios le entrega a uno un don, también le da un látigo; y el látigo es únicamente para autoflagelarse. [...] La diferencia entre escribir bien y el arte verdadero es sutil, pero brutal. (Capote, pág. 9)

»[...] En un cuento de Henry James, creo que “The Middle Years”, su personaje, un escritor en las sombras de la madurez, se lamenta: “Vivimos en la oscuridad, hacemos lo que podemos, el resto es la demencia del arte”. O palabras parecidas. En cualquier caso, míster James lo expone en toda la línea; nos está diciendo la verdad. Y la parte más negra de las sombras, la zona más demencial de la locura, es el riguroso juego que conlleva. (Capote, pp. 12-13)

»Los escritores, cuando menos aquellos que corren auténticos riesgos, que están ansiosos por morder la bala y pasar la plancha de los piratas, tienen mucho en común con otra casta de hombres solitarios: los individuos que se ganan la vida jugando al billar y dando cartas. (Capote, pág. 13)

»[...] Para empezar, creo que la mayoría de los escritores, incluso los mejores, son recargados. Yo prefiero escribir de menos. Sencilla, claramente, como arroyo del campo. (Capote, pág. 15).

»[...] Entretanto, aquí estoy en mi oscura demencia, absolutamente solo con mi baraja de naipes y, desde luego, con el látigo que Dios me dio (Capote, pág. 17)”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“I watched the plane's shadow ripple over the desert and drift across the Grand Canyon. (...) Stars and the lilac of twilight filled the air, and the Rocky Mountains, shrouded in blue snow, loomed ahead, a lemony slice of new moon hovering over them.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“B.J.J. dresses stevedore-style: overalls, men's blue shirts rolled up to the elbow, ankle-high lace-up workman's boots, and no makeup to relieve her pallor. But she is womanly, a dignified figure for all her down-to-earth ways. And she wears expensive perfumes, Parisian smells bought at the Masion Blache on Canal Street. Also, she has a glorious gold-toothed smile; it's like a heartening sunburst after a cold rainfall. You'd probably like her; most people do.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“I described that summer day, my baptism- it was so clear to me, the similarities between Quinn and the Reverend Snow, the linking fibers; but I spoke too emotionally, metaphysically, to communicate what I felt, and I could sense Jake's disappointment: he had expected from me a series of sensible perceptions, pristine, pragmatic insights that would help clarify his own concept of Quinn's character, the man's motivations.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“He's garrulous, he'll talk about anything: politics, women, sex, trout fishing, bowel movements, his trip to Russia, cattle versus wheat, gin versus vodka, Johnny Carson, his safari in Africa, religion, the Bible, Shakespeare, the genius of General MacArthur, bear hunting, Reno whores versus Las Vegas whores, the stock market, venereal diseases, cornflakes versus Shredded Wheat, gold versus diamonds, capital punishment (he's for it), football, baseball, basketball-anything. Except why I'm stuck in this town.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

“I began to feel sorry for myself, to understand what it means to be helpless, and to understand why it's a good thing that Buddhists send out their young monks to beg. It's chastening. It rips off the last layer of baby fat.”
― Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons