Truman Capote Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.

  Truman Capote

  Music, Writing, Creativity

  Truman Capote, M. Thomas Inge (1987). “Truman Capote: Conversations”, p.88, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• 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 rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

  Truman Capote

  Music, Writing, Law

  1974 Interview in Paris Review, Summer.

• Writing stopped being fun when I discovered the difference between good writing and bad and, even more terrifying, the difference between it and true art. And after that, the whip came down.

  Truman Capote

  Art, Fun, Writing

• You can't blame a writer for what the characters say.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Character, Fearless

  Lawrence Grobel, Truman Capote (1985). “Conversations with Capote”, E P Dutton

• I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.

  Truman Capote

  Believe, Writing, Editing

  Lawrence Grobel, Truman Capote (1986). “Conversations with Capote”, Plume

• Good writing is rewriting.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Rewriting, Good Writing

• All writing, all art, is an act of faith. If one tries to contribute to human understanding, how can that be called decadent? It's like saying a declaration of love is an act of decadence. Any work of art, provide it springs from a sincere motivation to further understanding between people, is an act of faith and therefore is an act of love.

  Truman Capote

  Art, Motivation, Spring

  Truman Capote, M. Thomas Inge (1987). “Truman Capote: Conversations”, p.19, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• I like to talk on TV about those things that aren't worth writing about.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Tvs

• Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.

  Truman Capote

  Children, Book, Writing

• When seriously explored, the short story seems to me the most difficult and disciplining form of prose writing extant. Whatever control and technique I may have I owe entirely to my training in this medium.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Insightful, Training

  " Truman Capote's previously unknown boyhood tales published" by Philip Oltermann, www.theguardian.com. October 9, 2014.

• That's not writing, that's typing

  Truman Capote

  Art, Writing, Entertainment

  Lawrence Grobel, Truman Capote (1985). “Conversations with Capote”, E P Dutton

• I am a completely horizontal author. I can't think unless I'm lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch.

  Truman Capote

  Lying, Writing, Thinking

  Truman Capote, M. Thomas Inge (1987). “Truman Capote: Conversations”, p.28, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• That isn't writing at all, it's typing.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Typing

  Quoted in New Republic, 9 Feb. 1959

• I always felt that nobody was going to understand me, going to understand what I felt about things. I guess that's why I started writing. At least on paper I could put down what I thought.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Paper, Understand Me

• There is really no practical help that one can offer: it is a matter of self-discovery, of one's own conviction, or working with one's own work; your style is what seems natural to you. It is a long process of discovery, one that never ends. I am working at it, and will be as long as I live.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Discovery, Self

  "Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote".

• I think the only person a writer has an obligation to is himself. If what I write doesn't fulfill something in me, if I don't honestly feel it's the best I can do, then I'm miserable.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Thinking, Miserable

  Truman Capote, M. Thomas Inge (1987). “Truman Capote: Conversations”, p.43, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• I got this idea of doing a really serious big work-it would be precisely like a novel, with a single difference: Every word of it would be true from beginning to end.

  Truman Capote

  Fake People, Writing, Reality

  Truman Capote, M. Thomas Inge (1987). “Truman Capote: Conversations”, p.70, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• It's a very excruciating life facing that blank piece of paper every day and having to reach up somewhere into the clouds and bring something down out of them.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Clouds, Pieces

  Lawrence Grobel, Truman Capote (1986). “Conversations with Capote”, Plume

• One of the most difficult things in writing a novel or anything at all is to choose the point of view from which it's going to be told.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Views, Point Of View

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I also write the last paragraph or page of a story first. That way I always know what I'm working towards.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Stories, Pages

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• If you have a single narrator, a person like an "I" - "'I' did this" and "'I' did that" - it automatically solves the most difficult problem in writing.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Narrators, Problem

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• If Francoise Sagan hadn't written a book called A Chateau in Sweden, I would certainly write a short story called A Chateau in Puerto Rico. And I may yet.

  Truman Capote

  Book, Writing, Stories

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• When I'm writing, I never write more than four hours a day.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Four, Hours

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• When I am writing, I try to do it five hours a day but I spend about two of those just fooling around.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Two, Trying

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I always write the end of everything first. I always write the last chapters of my books before I write the beginning....Then I go back to the beginning. I mean, it's always nice to know where you're going is my theory.

  Truman Capote

  Nice, Book, Writing

Page 1 of 2

← Prev

1

2

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin