Quotes from In Cold Blood

“The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call “out there.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“It is no shame to have a dirty face- the shame comes when you keep it dirty.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“As long as you live, there's always something waiting; and even if it's bad, and you know it's bad, what can you do? You can't stop living.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“Just remember: If one bird carried every grain of sand, grain by grain, across the ocean, by the time he got them all on the other side, that would only be the beginning of eternity. ”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“Imagination, of course, can open any door - turn the key and let terror walk right in.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“You are a man of extreme passion, a hungry man not quite sure where his appetite lies, a deeply frustrated man striving to project his individuality against a backdrop of rigid conformity. You exist in a half-world suspended between two superstructures, one self-expression and the other self-destruction. You are strong, but there is a flaw in your strength, and unless you learn to control it the flaw will prove stronger than your strength and defeat you. The flaw? Explosive emotional reaction out of all proportion to the occasion. Why? Why this unreasonable anger at the sight of others who are happy or content, this growing contempt for people and the desire to hurt them? All right, you think they're fools, you despise them because their morals, their happiness is the source of your frustration and resentment. But these are dreadful enemies you carry within yourself--in time destructive as bullets. Mercifully, a bullet kills its victim. This other bacteria, permitted to age, does not kill a man but leaves in its wake the hulk of a creature torn and twisted; there is still fire within his being but it is kept alive by casting upon it faggots of scorn and hate. He may successfully accumulate, but he does not accumulate success, for he is his own enemy and is kept from truly enjoying his achievements.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“I thought that Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman. I thought so right up to the moment that I cut his throat.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“I despise people who can't control themselves.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“I've tried to believe, but I don't, I can't, and there's no use pretending.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“It is easy to ignore the rain if you have a raincoat”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“The enemy was anyone who was someone he wanted to be or who had anything he wanted to have.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“There’s got to be something wrong with us. To do what we did. ”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“Those fellows, they're always crying over killers. Never a thought for the victims.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“There is considerable hypocrisy in conventionalism. Any thinking person is aware of this paradox; but in dealing with conventional people it is advantageous to treat them as though they were not hypocrites. It isn't a question of faithfulness to your own concepts; it is a matter of compromise so that you can remain an individual without the constant threat of conventional pressures.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“Her bedroom window overlooked the garden, and now and then, usually when she was "having a bad spell," Mr. Helm had seen her stand long hours gazing into the garden, as though what she saw bewitched her. ("When I was a girl," she had once told a friend, "I was terribly sure trees and flowers were the same as birds or people. That they thought things, and talked among themselves. And we could hear them if we really tried. It was just a matter of emptying your head of all other sounds. Being very quiet and listening very hard. Sometimes I still believe that. But one can never get quiet enough...")”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“Then starting home, he walked toward the trees, and under them, leaving behind him the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“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.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“I believe in hanging. Just so long as I'm not the one being hanged.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“You want not to give a damn, to exist without responsibility, without faith or friends or warmth.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“Two features in his personality make-up stand out as particularly pathological. The first is his ‘paranoid’ orientation toward the world. He is suspicious and distrustful of others, tends to feel that others discriminate against him, and feels that others are unfair to him and do not understand him. He is overly sensitive to criticism that others make of him, and cannot tolerate being made fun of. He is quick to sense slight or insult in things others say, and frequently may misinterpret well-meant communications. He feels the great need of friendship and understanding, but he is reluctant to confide in others, and when he does, expects to be misunderstood or even betrayed. In evaluating the intentions and feelings of others, his ability to separate the real situation from his own mental projections is very poor. He not infrequently groups all people together as being hypocritical, hostile, and deserving of whatever he is able to do to them. Akin to this first trait is the second, an ever -present, poorly controlled rage--- easily triggered by any feelings of being tricked, slighted, or labeled inferior by others. For the most part, his rages in the past have been directed at authority figures (297).”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“They shared a doom against which virtue was no defense”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“Imagination, of course, can open any door—turn the key and let terror walk right in.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“The walls of the cell fell away, the sky came down, I saw the big yellow bird.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“One day she told the class, ‘Nancy Clutter is always in a hurry, but she always has time. And that’s one definition of a lady.’ ”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“Time rarely weighed upon him, for he had many methods of passing it.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there.’ . . .The land is flat, the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“In school we only learn to recognize the words and to spell but the application of these words to real life is another thing that only life and living can give us.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“Sorrow and profound fatigue are at the heart of Dewey's silence. It had been his ambition to learn "exactly what happened in that house that night." Twice now he'd been told, and the two versions were very much alike, the only serious discrepancy being that Hickock attributed all four deaths to Smith, while Smith contended that Hickock had killed the two women. But the confessions, though they answered
questions of how and why, failed to satisfy his sense of meaningful design. The crime was a psychological accident, virtually an impersonal act; the victims might as well have been killed by lightning. Except for one thing: they had experienced prolonged terror, they had suffered. And Dewey could not forget their sufferings. Nonetheless, he found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger - with, rather, a measure of sympathy - for Perry Smith's life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another. Dewey's sympathy, however, was not deep enough to accommodate either forgiveness or mercy. He hoped to see Perry and his partner hanged - hanged back to back.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

“A sensible question, as Mrs. Clare, an admirer of logic, though a curious interpreter of it, was driven to admit.”
― Truman Capote, quote from In Cold Blood

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Popular quotes

“The moon and sun are eternal travelers. Even the years wander on. A lifetime adrift in a boat or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. —Bashō: Oku-no-hosomichi”
― Matsuo Bashō, quote from Backroads to Far Towns: Basho's Travel Journal

“Frederick?
Had she really spoken? Certainly she'd tried, but her voice had failed to materialize and all she heard was the sound of her nightgown ripping as Frederick pulled it over her head and threw it aside.
He was kneeling now between her ankles, pushing at her, forcing her knees apart and then her arms until she was entirely splayed on the bed beneath him.
Nothing was said. Not a word.
Ede felt his hand between her legs, forcing the way for the rest of him. Stop, she wanted to tell him. Stop. I don't understand what you're doing. But nothing - still nothing was said.
He seemed to be raging inside her, moving his hips in a circular fashion, all the weight of his upper body help above her, resting on his arms, his hands pushing down into the mattress.
Stop! But he didn't.
Don't! But he did.
Nothing. Not one word.
The only sound he made was a choking noise in his throat at the end, as tough he might be going to strangle. But when he rolled away from her onto his back, she felt the shudder of his first free breath and she heard him sigh. It was over. Tonight. It was done.
Ede could not bare the thought of seeing him, or of being seen. Still without speaking, she rose from the bed and through the dark, found her way to the bathroom. She had brought the torn nightgown wit her, but when she turned on the light and saw it, she threw it down in the corner. Ruined. Spoiled. Everything.
When at last, she returned to the bed, Fredrick was sound asleep beneath the covers - and nothing - nothing - nothing was said.”
― Timothy Findley, quote from The Piano Man's Daughter

“Личността, чието име току-що бе произнесено, професор Адам Круг, философът, седеше малко встрани, потънал в едно кресло, опрял косматите си ръце на подлакътниците. Беше едър тежък човек над четирийсетте, с чорлава, пепелява или леко прошарена коса и грубо изсечено лице, навеждащо на мисълта за недодялан шахматист или навъсен композитор, но по-интелигентно. Силното компактно и мрачно чело, притежаваше някак особено херметично изражение (банков сейф, зид на затвор?), присъщо за челото на всеки мислител. Мозък, съставен от вода, разни химически съединения и група високомодифицирани мазнини. Бледите стоманеносиви очи в почти правоъгълни орбити, полузакрити от гъсти вежди, които някога са ги защитавали от отровните извержения на вече изчезнали птици – хипотезата на Шнайдер. Ушите бяха големи, орбасли с косми отвътре. Носът му бе обрамчен от две дълбоки гънки, спускащи се по широките бузи. Тази сутрин не беше се бръснал. Носеше силно омачкан тъмен костюм и неизменната тъмнолилава папийонка на (някога бели, а сега неопределен цвят) точки, с разкъсана лява вътрешна фльонга. Не особено чистата яка беше от типа отворена, тоест с удобна триъгълна чупка за адамовата ябълка. Носеше характерните обувки с дебели подметки и старомодни черни гети. Какво още? Ах, да – разсеяното почукване с показалец по подлакътника на креслото.

Под тази видима повърхност копринена риза обгръщаше мощния му торс и уморените бедра. Тя бе дълбоко втъкната в наполеонки, които от своя страна бяха напъхани в чорапите: известно му бе за слуховете, че не носи чорапи (оттам и гетите), но това не беше истина; в действителност такива имаше на краката му – хубави, скъпи, бледолилави, копринени.
Под всичко това беше топлата бяла кожа. Мравешка пътека, тесен капилярен керван вървеше нагоре по средата на корема му, за да се прекъсне точно до пъпа. По-тъмна и по-гъста растителност бе разперила крила на гърдите му.

Под това имаше мъртва съпруга и спящо дете.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, quote from Bend Sinister

“He stopped. “You're upset. I'll shut up and leave you”
― Iris Johansen, quote from The Killing Game

“So I graduated from college with a degree in journalism and was ready to find my dream job at a newspaper in addition to one good man who owned his own car and was certain about his sexuality, my two new, revised qualifying criteria for a potential date.”
― Laurie Notaro, quote from Autobiography of a Fat Bride: True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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