Quotes from Music for Chameleons

Truman Capote ·  262 pages

Rating: (7.4K votes)


“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, quote from Music for Chameleons


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


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



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


About the author

Truman Capote
Born place: in New Orleans, Louisiana, The United States
Born date September 30, 1924
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Lancelot and Guenever were sitting at the solar window. An observer of the present day, who knew the Arthurian legend only from Tennyson and people of that sort, would have been startled to see that the famous lovers were past their prime. We, who have learned to base our interpretation of love on the conventional boy-and-girl romance of Romeo and Juliet, would be amazed if we could step back into the Middle Ages - when the poet of chivalry could write about Man that he had 'en ciel un dieu, par terre une deesse'. Lovers were not recruited then among the juveniles and adolescents: they were seasoned people, who knew what they were about. In those days people loved each other for their lives, without the conveniences of the divorce court and the psychiatrist. They had a God in heaven and a goddess on earth - and, since people who devote themselves to godesses must exercise some caution about the ones to whom they are devoted, they neither chose them by the passing standards of the flesh alone, nor abandoned it lightly when the bruckle thing began to fail.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Candle in the Wind


“The only way to help me stop suffering was to help me die.”
― Souad, quote from Burned Alive


“Bebekler hakkında ne derler bilirsin."
Ruh yiyici sırıttı." Neymiş?"
"Altına ne zaman edeceğini tahmin bile edemezsin.”
― Samantha Young, quote from Blood Past


“The Rajah's handsome eunuch never guessed that she was telling him the tale of her own life.”
― Antonia Michaelis, quote from Tiger Moon


“As the body rots, so does the cage that traps us in our wordly concerns. When my legs become too weak to carry my body, I stopped pacing with worry. When my fingers became twisted, I stopped pointing blame. When I lost my sight, I stopped seeing illusions. It may be dark in the pot that I am simmering in, but I can see more clearly than I have ever seen in my life.”
― Samantha Sotto, quote from Before Ever After


Interesting books

The Intelligent Investor
(41.1K)
The Intelligent Inve...
by Benjamin Graham
Empire of the Sun
(13.8K)
Empire of the Sun
by J.G. Ballard
The Art of Fielding
(93K)
The Art of Fielding
by Chad Harbach
The Elephant Tree
(15.6K)
The Mighty Storm
(65.6K)
The Mighty Storm
by Samantha Towle
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
(17.3K)
Fear and Loathing on...
by Hunter S. Thompson

About BookQuoters

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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.