Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories Quotes

You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.

Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot.

The answer is good things only happen to you if you're good. Good? Honest is more what I mean... Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart.

I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together.

Aprils have never meant much to me, autumns seem that season of beginning, spring.

It’s better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes.

You know the days when you get the mean reds? Paul Varjak: The mean reds. You mean like the blues? Holly Golightly: No. The blues are because you’re getting fat, and maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re just sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid, and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?.

Home is where you feel at home. I'm still looking.

Never love a wild thing...If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky.

Everybody has to feel superior to somebody," she said. "But it's customary to present a little proof before you take the privilege.

Don't wanna sleep, don't wanna die, just wanna go a-travellin' through the pastures of the sky.

would you reach in the drawer there and give me my purse. A girl doesn't read this sort of thing without her lipstick.

we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I.

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.

Leave it to me: I'm always top banana in the shock department.

I'm very scared, Buster. Yes, at last. Because it could go on forever. Not knowing what's yours until you've thrown it away.

You’re wrong. She is a phony. But on the other hand you’re right. She isn’t a phony because she’s a real phony. She believes all this crap she believes. You can’t talk her out of it.

Reading dreams. That's what started her walking down the road. Every day she'd walk a little further: a mile, and come home. Two miles, and come home. One day she just kept on.

It should take you about four seconds to walk from here to the door. I'll give you two.

I'll never get used to anything. Anybody that does they might as well be dead.

Love should be allowed. I’m all for it. Now that I’ve got a pretty good idea what it is.

What I found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it;nothing very bad could happen to you there.

Maybe the older you grow and the less easy it is to put thought into action, maybe that’s why it gets all locked up in your head and becomes a burden.

I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods.

The average personality reshapes frequently, every few years even our bodies undergo a complete overhaul - desirable or not, it is a natural thing that we should change. All right, here were two people who never would change. That is what Mildred Grossman had in common with Holly Golightly. They would never change because they'd been given their character too soon; which, like sudden riches, leads to a lack of proportion: the one had splurged herself into a top-heavy realist, the other a lopsided romantic.

The blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long. You're sad, that's all. But the mean reds are horrible. You're afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don't know what you're afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don't know what it is.

I’ve tried that. I’ve tried aspirin, too. Rusty thinks I should smoke marijuana, and I did for a while, but it only makes me giggle. What I’ve found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany’s. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany’s, then I’d buy some furniture and give the cat a name.

It's a bore, but the answer is good things only happen to you if you're good. Good? Honest is more what I mean. Not lawtype honest--I'd rob a grave, I'd steal two-bits off a dead man's eyes if I thought it would contribute to the day's enjoyment--but unto-thyself-type honest. Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart. Which isn't being pious. Just practical. Cancer may cool you, but the other's sure to.

A disquieting loneliness came into my life, but it induced no hunger for friends of longer acquaintance: they seemed now like a salt-free, sugarless diet.

I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like.

I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany´s.

There's so few things men can talk about. If a man doesn't like baseball, then he must like horses, and if he doesn't like either of them, well, I'm in trouble anyway: he don't like girls.

Those final weeks, spanning end of summer and the beginning of another autumn, are blurred in memory, perhaps because our understanding of each other had reached that sweet depth where two people communicate more often in silence than in words: an affectionate quietness replaces the tensions, the unrelaxed chatter and chasing about that produce a friendship’s more showy, more, in the surface sense, dramatic moments.

Oh Jesus God we did belong to each other. He was mine.

I knew damn well I would never be a movie star. It's too hard; and if you are intelligent, it's too embarrassing. My complexes aren't inferior enough: being a movie star and having a big fat ego are supposed to go hand-in-hand; actually, it's essential not to have any ego at all. I don't mean I'd mind being rich and famous. That's very much on my schedule, and someday I'll try and get around to it; but if it happens, I'd like to have my ego, tagging along. I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany's.

Dizzy with excitement is no mere phrase.

I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart. Which isn't being pious. Just practical. Cancer may cool you, but the other's sure to.

The average personality re-shapes frequently, every few years even our bodies undergo a complete overhaul-desirable or not, it is a natural thing that we should change.

I thought of the future, and spoke of the past.

Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart.

Poor slob without a name. It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't the right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together.

She's such a goddamn liar maybe she don't know herself anymore.

I suppose you think I'm very brazen. Or très fou. Or something.' Not at all.' She seemed disappointed. 'Yes, you do. Everybody does. I don't mind. It's useful.

But there were moments when she played songs that made you wonder where she learned them, where indeed she came from. Harsh-tender wandering tunes with words that smacked of pinewoods or prairie. One went: Don’t wanna sleep, Don’t wanna die, Just wanna go a-travelin’ through the pastures of the sky; and this one seemed to gratify her the most, for often she continued it long after her hair hard dried, after the sun had gone and there were lighted windows in the dusk.

But I know what I like.' She smiled, and et the cat drop to the floor. 'It's like Tiffany's,'she said. 'Not that I give a hoot about jewellery. Diamonds, yes. But it's tacky to wear diamonds before you're forty; and even that's risky.

I don't think I've ever drunk champagne before breakfast before. With breakfast on several occasions, but never before before.

Lively, too. Talky as a jaybird. With something smart to say on every subject: better than the radio.

Don't wanna sleep, don't wanna die, just wanna go a-travelin' through the pastures of the sky.

She was a triumph over ugliness, so often more beguiling than real beauty, if only because it contains paradox. In this case, as opposed to the scrupulous method of good taste and scientific grooming, the trick had been worked by exaggerating defects; she'd made them ornamental by admitting them boldly.

She was never without dark glasses, she was always well groomed, there was a consequential good taste in the plainness of her clothes, the blues and grays and lack of luster that made her, herself, shine so.

Not that I give a hoot about jewelry. Diamonds, yes. But it’s tacky to wear diamonds before you’re forty; and even that’s risky. They only look right on the really old girls. Maria Ouspenskaya. Wrinkles and bones, white hair and diamonds. I can’t wait.

The instant she saw the letter she squinted her eyes and bent her lips in a tough tiny smile that advanced her age immeasurably. "Darling," she instructed me, "would you reach in the drawer there and give me my purse. A girl doesn't read this sort of thing without her lipstick.

She took off her dark glasses and squinted at me. It was as though her eyes were shattered prisms, the dots of blue and gray and green like broken bits of sparkle.

No. Because I'm not a cold plate of m-m-macaroni. I'm a warm-hearted person. It's the basis of my character.

June, July, all through the warm months she hibernated like a winter animal who did not know spring had come and gone.

As Miss Golightly was saying, before she was so rudely interrupted...

Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart. Which isn't being pious. Just practical.

And since gin to artifice bears the same relation as tears to mascara, her attractions at once dissembled.

What I’ve found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany’s. It calms me down right away, the quiteness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there.

For all her chic thinness, she had an almost breakfast-cereal air of health, a soap-and-lemon cleanness, a rough pink darkening of the cheeks.

I don't mean I'd mind being rich and famous. That's very much on my schedule and someday I'll try to get around to it.

poor slob without a name. It’s a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven’t any right to give him one: He’ll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of hooked up by the river one day, we don’t belong to each other. He’s an independent, and so am I. I don’t want to own anything until I know I’ve found a place where me and things belong together.

Of course people couldn't help but think I must be a bit of a dyke myself. And of course I am. Everyone is: a bit. So what? That never discouraged a man yet, in fact it seems to goad them on.