Notable Quotes from 'In Cold Blood' by Truman Capote

"No. Because once a thing is set to happen, all you can do is hope it won't'" (88)

"...the parrot appeared arrived while he slept, a bird 'taller than Jesus, yellow like a sunflower', a warrior angel who blinded the nuns with its beak, fed upon their eyes, slaughtered them as they 'pleaded for mercy', then so gently lifted him, enfolded him, winged him away to 'paradise'." (89)

"'But a nigger,' said Perry. 'That's different.'" (105)

"When Perry said, 'I think there must be something wrong with us', he was making an admission he 'hated to make'." (106)

"...it was because he'd wanted Dick's friendship, wanted Dick to 'respect' him, think him 'hard', as much 'the masculine type' as he had considered Dick to be." (107)

"Of course, Perry could have struck out on his own, stayed in Mexico, let Dick go where he damn well wanted. Why not? Hadn't he always been 'a loner', and without any 'real friends'" (119)

About his parents: "Until Perry was five, the team of 'Tex & Flo' continued to work the rodeo circuit. As a way of life, it wasn't 'any gallon of ice-cream'" (127)

"Perry had on several occasions run off, set out to find his lost father, for he had lost his mother as well, learned to 'despise' her; liquor had blurred the face, swollen the figure of the once sinewy, limber Cherokee girl, had 'soured her soul', honed her tongue to the wickedest point, so dissolved her self-respect that generally she did not bother to ask the names of the stevedores and trolley-car conductors and such persons who accepted what she offered without charge... Consequently, as Perry recalled, 'Iu was always thinking about Dad, hoping he could come take me away..." (127)

"There was this one nurse... she'd fill a tub with ice-cold water, put me in it, and hold me under till I was blue. Nearly drowned. (128)

"I liked to read, too. Improve my vocabulary. Make up songs. And I could draw. But I never got any encouragement - from him (dad) or anybody else." (129)

"I like kids. Little kids." (131)

An argument with his father: "He carried on like that till I couldn't stand it. My hands got hold of his throat. My hands - but I couldn't control them. They wanted to choke him to death." (132)

Perry's family: "Jimmy a suicide. Fern out the window. My mother dead. Been dead eight years. Everybody gone but dad and Barbara.'" (134)

A letter from his sister: "...your present confinement is embarrassing to me as well as Dad - not because of what you did but the fact that you don't show me any signs of SINCERE regret and seem to show no respect for any laws, people or anything." (137)

'My acquaintances are many, my friends are few; those who really know me fewer still." (142)

"As a child he had often thought of killing himself, but those were sentimental reveries born of a wish to punish his father and mother and other enemies. From young manhood onwards, however, the prospect of ending his life had more and more lost its fantastic quality." (195)

"Now, that's something I despise. Anybody that can't control themselves sexually." (236)

"According to him he was doing it out of consideration for Hickock's parents - said he was sorry for Dick's mother. Said, 'She's a real sweet person. It might be some comfort to her to know Dick never pulled the trigger." (247)

While in jail: "Another method of escape, suicide, replaced them in his musings... One night he dreamed that he'd unscrewed the bulb, broken it, and with the broken glass cut his wrists and ankles. 'I felt all breath and light leaving me,' he said, in a subsequent description of his sensations. 'The walls of the cell fell away, the sky came down, I saw the big yellow bird.'" (257)

"I remember my mother was 'entertaining' some sailors while my father was away.... And my father, after a violent struggle, threw the sailors out & proceeded to beat my mother. I was frightfully scared" (265)

"'Am I sorry? If that's what you mean - I'm not. I don't feel anything about it. I wish I did. But nothing about it bothers me a bit. Half an hour after it happened, Dick was making jokes and I was laughing at them. Maybe we're not human. I'm human enough to feel sorry for myself." (282)

Psychiatrist about Perry: "He is suspicious and distrustful of other, tends to feel that others discriminate against him, and feels that others are unfair to him and do not understand him... his present personality structure is very nearly that of a paranoid schizophrenic reaction.'" (289-290)

Richard Eugene "Dick" Hickock related:

"Dick was consuming a Sunday dinner. The others at the table... were not conscious of anything uncommon in his manner" (72)

"There were those Dick claimed to love: three sons, a mother, a father, a brother - persons he hadn't dared confide his plans to, or bid goodbye, though he never expected to see them again - not in this life." (102)

"Basketball! Baseball! Football! Dick was always the star player. A pretty good student, too, with A marks in several subjects." (158)

And listening to Dick's conceited chatter , hearing him start to describe his Mexican 'amorous conquests'... Imagine going all out to impress a man you were going to kill, a man who wouldn't be alive ten minutes from now." (166)

"He was sorry he felt as he did about her, for his sexual interest in female children was a failing of which he was 'sincerely ashamed'." (194-195)

Detective interrogating Dick: "We shook hands; his hand was drier than mine. Clean, polite, nice voice, good diction, a pretty decent looking fellow, with a very disarming smile - and in the beginning he smiled quite a lot" (209)

Dick was smart, a convincing performer, but his 'guts' were unreliable, he panicked too easily." (220)

Dick thinking to himself in jail: "It was Perry he ought to have silenced." (221)

"Hickock said, '"Perry Smith killed the Clutters.'" (222) - snitched to detectives

"You couldn't argue with him, he was so excited. The glory of having everybody at his mercy, that's what excited him." (232)

"My senior year was best. I never had any steady girl, just played the field. That was when I had my first relationship with a girl... I got offers from two colleges to play ball, but never attended any of them" (269)

"I know it is wrong. But at the time I never give any thought to whether it is right or wrong. The same with stealing. It seems to be an impulse. One thing I never told you about the Clutter deal is this. Before I ever went to their house I knew there would be a girl there. I think the main reason I went there was not to rob them but to rape the girl. Because I thought a lot about it. That is one reason why I never wanted to turn back when we started to." (270)

"I began thinking I never really loved my wife" (271)

Psychiatrist about Dick: "...His self-esteem is very low, and he secretly feels inferior to others and sexually inadequate.

Both:

"By sundown, when the stores were closing, their pockets were filled with cash and the car was heaped with saleable, pawnable wares." (95)

"...to make the victim more comfortable" (100)

"Hadn't they almost had a fist fight when quite recently he had prevented Dick from raping a terrified young girl?" (195)

While providing a ride for a hitchhiking old man and kid: "Dick persisted. 'Suppose he dies? Think of what could happen. The questions' ... Perry remembered himself at that age, his own wanderings with an old man. 'Go ahead. Put them out. But I'll be getting out, too.'" (202)

"I did make some advances towards the Clutter girl when I was there. But Perry never gave me a chance." (270)