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Truman Capote

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“Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell,' Holly advised him. 'That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky." "She's drunk," Joe Bell informed me. "Moderately," Holly confessed....Holly lifted her martini. "Let's wish the Doc luck, too," she said, touching her glass against mine. "Good luck: and believe me, dearest Doc -- it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.”

“راستش نه آنها به من نقش می دادند و نه من این کاره بودم. اگر احساس گناه می کنم، به نظرم برای این است که وقتی من حتی سر سوزنی هم رؤیاپردازی نمی کردم، اجازه دادم او همین طور رؤیا ببافد. من فقط داشتم تظاهر می کردم تا کمی ترقی کنم. مثل روز برایم روشن بود که هیچ وقت ستاره ی سینما نخواهم شد. خیلی کار سختی است. اگر باهوش باشی، خسابی معذب می شوی. من به اندازه ی کافی عقده ی حقارت ندارم. ظاهرش این است که برای ستاره ی سینما شدن باید خیلی خودمحور باشی. اما در واقعیت شر شرطش این است که هیچ منیتی نداشته باشی.”

“البته منظورم این نیست که من از پولدار و معروف شدن بدم می آید. اتفاقا هر دو اینها جزو برنامه های زندگی ام هستند و سعی می کنم یک روز بهشان برسم. اما دوست دارم وقتی این اتفاق می افتد، خود خودم هم سر جایش باشد. دوست دارم وقتی یک روز صبح بیدار می شوم و به تیفانی می روم تا صبحانه بخورم، هنوز خودم باشم.”

“تا روزی که بدانم جایی را پیدا کرده ام که من و چیزهایش به هم تعلق داریم، نمی خواهم مالک هیچ چیزی باشم. خودم هم درست نمی دانم آن جا کجاست. اما می دانم چه شکلی است.”

“(( چرت نگو. چه اشکالی دارد به مردی که دوستش داری نگاهی موقرانه بیندازی؟ مردها زیبایند، بیشترشان زیبایند، و ژوزه هم همینطور. اگر حتی نمی خواهی نگاهش کنی، به نظر من که یک بشقاب ماکارونی سرد نصیبش شده.)) (( صدایت را بیییار پایین.)) (( محال است عاشقش باشی. بفرما. جواب سوالت را گرفتی؟ )) (( نننه، چون من یک بشقاب ماکارونی سرد نیستم. من یک آدم رررقیق القلبم. خمیره ی شخصیت من همین است.)) (( قبول. تو قلب رئوفی داری. اما من ترجیح می دهم با یک بطری آب داغ به رخت خواب بروم. گرمایش ملموس تر است.))”

“تا روزی که بدانم جایی را پیدا کرده ام که من و چیزهایش به هم تعلق داریم، نمی خواهم مالک چیزی باشم. خودم هم درست نمی دانم آن جا کجاست. اما می دانم چه شکلی است.”

“(( چرت نگو. چه اشکالی دارد به مردی که دوستش داری نگاه موقرانه بیندازی؟ مردها زیبایند، بیشترشان زیبایند، و ژوزه هم همینطور. اگر حتی نمی خواهی نگاهش کنی، به نظر من که یک بشقاب ماکارونی سرد نصیبش شده. )) (( صدایت را بیییار پایین )) (( محال است عاشقش باشی. بفرما. جواب سوالت را گرفتی؟ )) (( نننه، چون من یک بشقاب ماکارونی سرد نیستم. من یک آدم رررقیق القلبم. خمیره ی شخصیت من همینطور است.)) (( قبول. تو قلب رئوفی داری. اما من ترجیح می دهم با یک بطری آب داغ به رخت خواب بروم. گرمایش ملموس تر است.((”

“I am always drawn back to the places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods. For instant there is a brownstone in the East Seventies where, during the early years of the war, I had my first New York apartment. It was one room crowded with attic fur-niture, a sofa and fat chairs upholstered in that itchy, particular red velvet that one associates with hot days on a train. The walls were stucco, and a color rather like tobacco-spit. Everywhere, in the bathroom too, there were prints of Roman ruins freckled brown with age. The single window looked out on a fire escape. Even so, my spirits heightened whenever I felt in my pocket the key to this apartment; with all its gloom, it still was a place of my own, the first, and my books were there, and jars of pencils to sharpen, everything I needed, so I felt, to become the writer I wanted to be.”

“I thought Lord of the Flies was one of the great rip-offs of our time. Complete steal from A High Wind In Jamaica. He just literally lifted the entire theme, plot, and virtually characterization from A High Wind In Jamaica, turned them into a bunch of small boys and placed it on an island. Otherwise it's precisely the same novel.”

“Flannery O'Connor had a certain genius. I don't think John Updike has, or Norman Mailer or William Styron, all of whom are talented, but they don't exceed themselves in any way. Norman Mailer thinks William Burroughs is a genius, which I think is ludicrous beyond words. I don't think William Burroughs has an ounce of talent.”

“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 law-enforcement agencies across the country to know that's just not the case. Of course, a certain small percentage of policemen are irresponsible...but that doesn't justify the current unjust barrage of propaganda against a tribe of men who are hard-working, underpaid and daily risking their lives to protect us. I'm sure there are isolated instances of police brutality, but the rising crime rate and urban violence constitute a far, far more pressing problem.”

“So if black power means black armies racing through the streets, creating havoc, that certainly does nothing to advance the legitimate political and economic aspirations of the black community. Just the opposite, in fact....If they think a few Molotov cocktails are going to bring down the whole system and build something new, I'm afraid they're just indulging in wishful-thinking,”

“ants - the pious insect, Randolph called them: they fill me with oh so much admiration and ah oh so much gloom: such puritan spirit in their mindless march of Godly industry, but can so anti-individual a government admit the poetry of what is past understanding? Certainly the man who refused to carry his crumb would find assassins on his trail, and doom in every smile. As for me, I prefer the solitary mole: he is no rose dependent upon thorn and root, nor ant whose time of being is organized by the analterable herd: sightless, he goes his separate way, knowing truth and freedom are attitudes of the spirit.”

“Надбягващи се алени звезди блещукаха на кръглия таван и Грейди, напръскана от светлината им, замаяна от техния вихър, потъна в това небе-убежище; някакъв далечен глас от земята стигна до нея: чуваш ли? чу ли как казах, че си аристократка? Като насън си помисли, че гласът е на Клайд, макар че звучеше съвсем като Питър! Косата й се вееше победоносно и палеше пространството. Танцуваха, докато музиката секна, и в същия момент звездите угаснаха.”

“Thackeray's a good writer and Flaubert is a great artist. Trollope is a good writer and Dickens is a great artist. Colette is a very good writer and Proust is a great artist. Katherine Anne Porter was an extremely good writer and Willa Cather was a great artist.”

“—¿Cuándo has visto algo que sea lo que aparenta? —dijo Anna—. Ves un renacuajo y ya es un sapo, te pones un anillo que parece de oro y te deja una marca verde en el dedo. Ahí tienes el caso de mi segundo marido: parecía un tipo agradable y resultó un crápula cualquiera. Mira este cuarto: la chimenea no sirve ni para encender incienso y los espejos sólo sirven para dar la impresión de espacio: mienten. Walter, nada es jamás lo que parece. Los árboles de Navidad son de celofán y la nieve de hojuelas de jabón. Dentro de nosotros revolotea algo llamado «alma»: «morir no es morir, vivir no es vivir», ¿y encima deseas saber si te amo? No seas tonto, Walter, ni siquiera somos amigos...”

“Она рассеянно посмотрела на меня и потёрла нос, будто он чесался; жест этот, как я впоследствии понял, часто его наблюдая, означал, что собеседник проявляет излишнее любопытство. Как и многих людей, охотно и откровенно о себе рассказывающих, всякий прямой вопрос сразу её настораживал.”

“It could be said of Mr Schaeffer that in his life he'd done only one really bad thing: he'd killed a man. The circumstances of that deed are unimportant, expect to say that the man deserved to die and that for it Mr Schaeffer was sentenced to ninety-nnie years and a day. For a long while - for many years, in fact - he had not thought of how it was before he came to the farm. His memory of those times was like a house where no one lives and where the furniture has rotted away. But tonight it was as if lamps had been lighted through all the gloomy dead rooms. It had begun to happen when he saw Tico Feo coming through the dusk with his splendid guitar. Until that moment he had not been lonesome. Now, recognising his loneliness, he felt alive. He had not wanted to be alive. To be alive was to remember brown rivers where the fish run, and sunlight on a lady's hair.”

“When was it that first I heard of the grass harp? Long before the autumn we lived in the China tree; an earlier autumn, then; and of course it was Dolly who told me, no one else would have known to call it that, a grass harp. . . If on leaving town you take the church road you soon will pass a glaring hill of bonewhite slabs and brown burnt flowers: this is the Baptist cemetery. . . below the hill grows a field of high Indian grass that changes color with the seasons: go to see it in the fall, late September, when it has gone red as sunset, when scarlet shadows light firelight breeze over it and the autumn winds strum on its dry leaves sighing human music, a harp of voices. . . It must have been on one of those September days when we were there in the woods gathering roots that Dolly said: Do you hear? that is the grass harp, always telling a story -- it knows the stories of all the people on the hill, of all the people who ever lived, and when we are dead it will tell ours, too.”

“That's the difference between the serious artist and the craftsman--the craftsman can take material and because of his abilities do a professional job of it. The serious artist, like Proust, is like an object caught by a wave and swept to shore. He's obsessed by his material; it's like a venom working in his blood and the art is the antidote.”