- Truman Capote: It's as if Perry and I grew up in the same house. And one day he stood up and went out the back door, while I went out the front.
- [last lines]
- Truman Capote: And there wasn't anything I could have done to save them.
- Nelle Harper Lee: Maybe not. But the fact is, you didn't want to.
- Truman Capote: Ever since I was a child, folks have thought they had me pegged, because of the way I am, the way I talk. And they're always wrong.
- Truman Capote: Perry, I know what 'exacerbate' means.
- Perry Smith: Okay... well...
- Truman Capote: There is not a word or a sentence or a concept that you can illuminate for me.
- Perry Smith: 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: On the night of November 14th, two men broke into a quiet farmhouse in Kansas and murdered an entire family. Why did they do that? Two worlds exist in this country: the quiet conservative life, and and the life of those two men - the underbelly, the criminally violent. Those two worlds converged that bloody night.
- Nelle Harper Lee: How did you like the movie?
- [referring to To Kill a Mockingbird]
- Truman Capote: [Muttering after she wanders off] I don't see what all the fuss is about.
- Truman Capote: It's the hardest when someone has a notion about you and it's impossible to convince them otherwise.
- Perry Smith: [of Hickok] He's naturally mendacious. Not to be trusted. If he had a hundred dollars he'd steal a stick of chewing gum.
- Truman Capote: I had lunch with Jimmy Baldwin the other day.
- Party date: How is he?
- Truman Capote: He's lovely, he's a lovely man. And he told me the plot of his new book. And he said, "I just wanted to make sure it's not one of those problem novels," you know. And I said , "Jimmy. Your book is about a Negro homosexual who's in love with a Jew. Wouldn't you call that a problem?"
- [everyone laughs]
- Truman Capote: If I leave here without understanding you, the world will see you as a monster. Always. And I don't want that.
- Truman Capote: God, I'm glad you agreed to come. You're the only person I know with the qualifications to be both a research assistant and a personal bodyguard.
- Nelle Harper Lee: Thank you.
- Warden Marshall Krutch: You know, I didn't know where to count your boy at first... him being half-Indian. But I did him a favor. I counted him as a white man.
- Truman Capote: You're a kind and generous man.
- [last title cards]
- Title card: _In Cold Blood_ made Truman Capote the most famous writer in America. He never finished another book.
- Title card: The epigraph he chose for his last, unfinished work reads: "More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones."
- Title card: He died in 1984 of complications due to alcoholism.
- Truman Capote: We're not so different as you might think. Yeah, I was abandoned repeatedly as a child. My mama would drag me along to some new town so she could take up with another man she'd met. Night after night, she'd lock me in the hotel room alone. Mama would turn the latch and tell the staff not to let me out no matter what. And I was terrified. And I'd scream my head off until finally I'd collapse on the carpet next to the door and I'd fall asleep. Then after years of this she just left me with relatives in Alabama.
- Perry Smith: Who raised you up?
- Truman Capote: My aunts. And that's where I met Nelle. And she lived next door.
- Truman Capote: I was writing the script as they were filming - all that time in Italy - and I'd work like mad all day long and then dash down to the bar around midnight to hand in the next day's scenes. And Humphrey had just about moved into the hotel bar.
- Marie Dewey: [to Alvin] Humphrey Bogart.
- Truman Capote: Where he and John...
- Marie Dewey: [to Alvin] John Huston.
- Truman Capote: Had - eh - they drank every night. And I mean drank, you know, like famished water buffaloes.
- Truman Capote: Have you read the article about the killings in Kansas... in the front section of The New York Times? I think that's what I want to write about.
- Truman Capote: I think being true to who you are is important. I'm not saying you need to be psychoanalytical about the whole mess.
- Truman Capote: I'm not nearly that controversial. I'm not! I'm not! I am not. I'm not nearly that controversial. Oh, come on.
- Marie Dewey: Alvin pretends he doesn't know who you are, but the minute you came to town - he read your books.
- Truman Capote: No!
- Marie Dewey: He had one of his men pick up "Breakfast at Tiffany's" in Kansas City - 'cause it's banned in the library here.
- Old Man: There's talk of a bunch of Mexicans. A whole bunch of Mexicans.
- Alvin Dewey: Hello, George. It's good to see you again. I do have an opinion whether this was the work of one man or "a whole bunch," as you said. But it doesn't matter a whole lot whether it was Mexicans or Methodists or Eskimos. We're gonna find whoever did this. Now, four good people from our community are dead. So let's remember that.
- Truman Capote: The brother in the family, Kenyon is his name, they had placed a pillow under his head and then shot him point-blank in the face. Almost as if they were putting him to sleep - and then shot him.
- Jack Dunphy: This is the start of a great love affair.
- Nelle Harper Lee: Yeah. Truman in love with Truman.
- Truman Capote: I was in Marilyn's apartment just last week, talking about movies, art. Finally I had to break it to her that of the four Matisses hanging on her wall - two were upside down.
- Truman Capote: You don't have to worry 'cause I'm not going to write about this till everything's over.
- Alvin Dewey: Well, I'm not worried. I know what room you're in at the hotel and I know where you live in Brooklyn.
- Truman Capote: [on the phone] People here won't talk to me. They want someone like you, like Nelle. Me, they hate.
- Jack Dunphy: I can't think of a single quality I share with Nelle.
- Truman Capote: Well, maybe manliness.
- Truman Capote: I've decided on a title for my book. I think you'll like it. It's very masculine. In Cold Blood. Isn't that good?
- Warden Marshall Krutch: He hasn't eaten in a month. It ain't his right to kill himself. It's the right of the people. The people of this state. And that's who I work for, the people.
- Truman Capote: Perry, I have invitations to be in Morocco, Greece, and I prefer to be here - with you.
- Linda Murchak: Don't be taken in by my brother. He's got this sensitive side he'll show. You believe he's gentle and so easily hurt; but he'd just as soon kill you as shake your hand. I believe that.
- Perry Smith: I thought he was a very nice, gentle man. And I thought so right up till I slit his throat. I didn't know what I did till I heard the sound.
- Nelle Harper Lee: [to Truman] Listen, you be nice to Jack. Sometimes I think he's what I like about you best.
- Perry Smith: You know Ricardo donated his eyes to science? Next week, some blind man will be seeing what Dick used to see.
- Dick Hickock: Yeah, you could be walking in Denver or somewhere, Truman, and suddenly these *eyes* will be staring at you. That would be something, wouldn't it?
- Truman Capote: I don't think you actually need to be honest. But don't come asking some white man from the South whether your book about a black man fucking some Jew, when they're both of the same sex, is an issue! Don't ask me that!