"That's not writing that's typing.
That isn't writing at all, it's typing.
More Truman Capote quotes
"Writing stopped being fun when I discovered the difference between good writing and bad and, even more terrifying, the difference between it and true ...
"What are your chief vices? And virtues? I have no vices. The concept doesn't exist in my vocabulary. My chief virtue is gratitude
"What I am trying to achieve is a voice sitting by a fireplace telling you a story on a winter’s evening.
"I think the argument that no whites are free of racism is quite erroneous. But then, on another level, does it really matter if anybody is free of any...
"Before publication, and if provided by persons whose judgment you trust, yes, of course criticism helps. But after something is published, all I want ...
"It was as if I were an oyster and somebody forced a grain of sand into my shell -- a grain of sand that I didn't know was there and didn't particularl...
"Well, I'm about as tall as a shotgun, and just as noisy.
"To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.
"Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.
"I know it's become fashionable to depict the police as sadistic Cossacks riding down innocent citizens, but I've become well enough acquainted with la...
"Fitzgerald has charm. It's a silly word, but it's an exact word for me. I like 'The Great Gatsby' and it's sad, gay nostalgia.
"I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.
"Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rear...
"The trouble with all these far-right and far-left mentalities is that they can encompass only one side of an argument and are congenitally incapable o...