IN COLD BLOOD QUOTES

"At the time, not a soul in sleeping Holcomb heard them - four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives." - P17

"At the time, not a soul in sleeping Holcomb heard them - four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives."

"He laboured eighteen hours a day." - (Mr Clutter) - P23

"He laboured eighteen hours a day."

"It was not a place that strangers came upon by chance." - (Clutter's property) - P25

"Though he was a good sentry, alert...let him glimpse a gun...and his head dropped, his tail turned." - (Teddy, The Clutter's dog) - P25

"He headed for home and the day's work, unaware that it would be his last." (Mr Clutter) - P25

"He headed for home and the day's work, unaware that it would be his last." (Mr Clutter) - P25

"Every time you see a mirror you go into a trance." - Dick - (Perry) - P27

"Every time you see a mirror you go into a trance." - Dick - (Perry) - P27

"Dick was very literal-minded." (Dick) - P28

"Dick was very literal-minded." (Dick) - P28

"Dick's literalness, his pragmatic approach to every subject, was the primary reason Perry had been attracted to him, for it made Dick seem, compared to himself, so authentically tough, invulnerable, 'totally masculine'." - (Dick & Perry) - P28

"Dick's literalness, his pragmatic approach to every subject, was the primary reason Perry had been attracted to him, for it made Dick seem, compared to himself, so authentically tough, invulnerable, 'totally masculine'." - (Dick & Perry) - P28

"His own face enthralled him... it was a changeling's face." - (Perry) - P27

"His own face enthralled him... it was a changeling's face." - (Perry) - P27

"Always certain of what he wanted from the world, Mr Clutter had in large measure obtained it..." - P18

"Always certain of what he wanted from the world, Mr Clutter had in large measure obtained it..."

"A cinch...I promise you, honey, we'll blast hair all over them walls." - P34 - Dick

"A cinch...I promise you, honey, we'll blast hair all over them walls."

"Nancy's door was open. The curtains hadn't been drawn, and the room was full of sunlight. I don't remember screaming...I only remember Nancy's Teddy bear staring at me. And Nancy. And running..."

"Nancy's door was open. The curtains hadn't been drawn, and the room was full of sunlight. I don't remember screaming...I only remember Nancy's Teddy bear staring at me. And Nancy. And running..."

"I'm scared, Myrt." "Of what? When your time comes, it comes. And tears won't save you." - P80

"I'm scared, Myrt." "Of what? When your time comes, it comes. And tears won't save you."

"Living off mush and Hershey kisses and condensed milk." - P138 - (Perry)

"...mush and Hershey kisses and condensed milk."

"When Smith attacked Mr Clutter he was under a mental eclipse, deep inside a schizophrenic darkness." - (Dr Jones about Perry) - P302

"A key figure in some traumatic configuration." - (Dr Jones about who Perry was killing or destroying) - P302

"When Smith attacked Mr Clutter he was under a mental eclipse, deep inside a schizophrenic darkness."

"It was after one of these beatings, one could never forget...that 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."

"It was after one of these beatings, one could never forget...that 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."

"The community's most widely known citizen." -P17

"The community's most widely known citizen."

"No fooling Dick...This is authentic. I've got a map. I've got the whole history. It was buried there back in 1821 - Peruvian bullion, jewellery. Sixty million dollars - that's what they say it's worth. Even if we didn't find all of it, even if we only found some of it - Are you with me, Dick?"

"No fooling Dick...This is authentic. I've got a map. I've got the whole history. It was buried there back in 1821 - Peruvian bullion, jewellery. Sixty million dollars - that's what they say it's worth. Even if we didn't find all of it, even if we only found some of it - Are you with me, Dick?"

"Now, what kind of person would do that - tie up two women...and then draw up the bedcovers, tuck them in, like sweet dreams and good night?"

"Now, what kind of person would do that - tie up two women...and then draw up the bedcovers, tuck them in, like sweet dreams and good night?"

"Things hadn't changed much. Perry was twenty-odd years older and a hundred pounds heavier, and yet his material situation had improved not at all. He was still...an urchin dependent, so to say, on stolen coins."

"Things hadn't changed much. Perry was twenty-odd years older and a hundred pounds heavier, and yet his material situation had improved not at all. He was still...an urchin dependent, so to say, on stolen coins."

"Dick was sick of him - his harmonica, his aches and ills, his superstitions, the weepy, womanly eyes, the nagging, whispering voice. Suspicious, self-righteous, spiteful, he was like a wife that must be got rid of."

"Dick was sick of him - his harmonica, his aches and ills, his superstitions, the weepy, womanly eyes, the nagging, whispering voice. Suspicious, self-righteous, spiteful, he was like a wife that must be got rid of."

"Perry Smith killed the Clutters.... It was Perry. I couldn't stop him. He killed them all." - Dick - P232

"Perry Smith killed the Clutters.... It was Perry. I couldn't stop him. He killed them all."

"Nonetheless, he found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger...for Perry Smith's life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another."

"Nonetheless, he found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger...for Perry Smith's life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another."

"The cats, for example: the two thin grey toms who appeared with every twilight and prowled the Square, stopping to examine the cars parked around its periphery - behaviour puzzling to him until Mrs Meier explained that the cats were hunting for dead birds caught in the vehicles' engine grilles. Thereafter it pained him to watch their manoeuvres: 'Because most of my life I've done what they're doing. The equivalent." - Perry - P265

"The cats, for example: the two thin grey toms who appeared with every twilight and prowled the Square, stopping to examine the cars parked around its periphery - behaviour puzzling to him until Mrs Meier explained that the cats were hunting for dead birds caught in the vehicles' engine grilles. Thereafter it pained him to watch their manoeuvres: "Because most of my life I've done what they're doing. The equivalent."

"As the auction progressed, and Mr Clutter's worldly domain dwindled, gradually vanished, Paul Helm, remembering the burial of the murdered family said, "It's like a second funeral."

"As the auction progressed, and Mr Clutter's worldly domain dwindled, gradually vanished, Paul Helm, remembering the burial of the murdered family said, "It's like a second funeral."

"Soldiers don't lose much sleep. They murder, and get medals for doing it. The good people of Kansas want to murder me - and some hangman will be glad to get the work. It's easy to kill - a lot easier than passing a bad check. Just remember: I only knew the Clutters maybe an hour. If I'd really known them, I guess I'd feel different. I don't think I could live with myself. But the way it was, it was like picking targets off in a shooting gallery."

"Soldiers don't lose much sleep. They murder, and get medals for doing it. The good people of Kansas want to murder me - and some hangman will be glad to get the work. It's easy to kill - a lot easier than passing a bad check. Just remember: I only knew the Clutters maybe an hour. If I'd really known them, I guess I'd feel different. I don't think I could live with myself. But the way it was, it was like picking targets off in a shooting gallery."

"Well, what's there to say about capital punishment? I'm not against it. Revenge is all it is, but what's wrong with revenge? - Dick - P336

"I believe in hanging. Just so long as I'm not the one being hanged." - Dick - P336

"Well, what's there to say about capital punishment? I'm not against it. Revenge is all it is, but what's wrong with revenge? ...I believe in hanging. Just so long as I'm not the one being hanged."

"I think...it's a helluva thing to take a life in this manner. I don't believe in capital punishment, morally or legally. Maybe I had something to contribute, something - It would be meaningless to apologize for what I did. Even inappropriate. But I do. I apologize." - Perry - P341

"I think...it's a helluva thing to take a life in this manner. I don't believe in capital punishment, morally or legally. Maybe I had something to contribute, something - It would be meaningless to apologize for what I did. Even inappropriate. But I do. I apologize."

"But afterwards the townspeople, theretofore sufficiently unfearful of each other to seldom trouble to lock their doors, found fantasy recreating them over and again - those sombre explosions that stimulated fires of mistrust in the glare of which many neighbours viewed each other strangely, and as strangers." -P17

"But afterwards the townspeople, theretofore sufficiently unfearful of each other to seldom trouble to lock their doors, found fantasy recreating them over and again - those sombre explosions that stimulated fires of mistrust in the glare of which many neighbours viewed each other strangely, and as strangers."

"Sombre explosions that stimulated fires of mistrust." - P17

"Sombre explosions that stimulated fires of mistrust." - P17

"Many old neighbours viewed each other strangely, and as strangers." - P17

"Many old neighbours viewed each other strangely, and as strangers." - P17

"She'd fill a tub with ice-cold water... and hold me under till I was blue. Nearly drowned." - Perry - P139

"She'd fill a tub with ice-cold water... and hold me under till I was blue."

"A straight-A student, the president of her class...a skilled rider, an excellent musician..." - (Nancy Clutter) - P29

"... a straight-A student, the president of her class, a skilled rider, an excellent musician..."

She's got character. Gets it from her old man." - (Nancy Clutter) - P29

"Feeling wouldn't run so high if this had happened to anyone except the Clutters. Anyone less admired. Prosperous. Secure... I don't think people are so much frightened as they are deeply depressed." - A woman - P96

"Feeling wouldn't run so high if this had happened to anyone except the Clutters. Anyone less admired. Prosperous. Secure... I don't think people are so much frightened as they are deeply depressed."

"Certain foreign sounds impinged..." - P17

"certain foreign sounds impinged..." - P17

"Mr Clutter cut a man's-man figure." - P17

"Mr Clutter cut a man's-man figure." - P17

"Few Americans...had ever heard of Holcomb" - P16

"Drama in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there." (Holcomb) - P17

"She was nervous, she suffered 'little spells'... she had been an on-and-off psychiatric patient the last half-dozen years." - P18 - (Bonnie Clutter)

"She was nervous, she suffered 'little spells'... she had been an on-and-off psychiatric patient the last half-dozen years." - P18 - (Bonnie Clutter)

"The tension, the withdrawals, the pillow muted sobbing behind locked doors." - P19 (Bonnie Clutter)

"His laws were laws." -P19 (Mr Clutter)

"They did not share the same bedroom." - P20 - (Mr & Mrs Clutter)

"The handsome white house, standing on an ample lawn of groomed Bermuda grass, impressed Holcomb; it was a place people pointed out." - (The Clutters' House) - P21

"He wore a plain gold band, which was the symbol...of his marriage to the person he had wished to marry." - (Mr & Mrs Clutter) - P18

"He was known for his equanimity, his charitableness, and the fact that he paid good wages and distributed frequent bonuses." - (Mr Clutter) - P22

"Practically run that big house." - (Nancy Clutter) - P29

"I keep smelling cigarette smoke." - Nancy Clutter - P30

"Why do I keep smelling cigarette smoke?" -Nancy Clutter - P33

"Her confidante" - (Susan Kidwell) - P31

"a twelve guage pump-action shotgun...a flashlight, a fishing knife, a pair of leather gloves and a hunting vest fully stocked with shells contributed further atmosphere to this curious still life." - P33 (Capote uses this description to foreshadow the murders that will be carried out by Dick and Perry)

"Mr Sands...would never know he had paid his hireling to overhaul his own car." - (Dick) - P34

"I understand...I sympathise with that. They're good people. She's a real sweet person." (Perry about Dick's mother, (Shows that he is somewhat caring and can sympathise with others)) - P35

"Definition of a lady." - (Nancy Clutter) - P36

"All my children are very efficient. They don't need me." - Mrs Clutter - P36 - (Shows the separation that exists among the family, although the Clutters, in the eyes of most people, have achieved the American Dream, they clearly have flaws and issues and are far from being perfect. Capote potentially communicates that the American Dream is far from a "Dream" and in reality is unachievable)

"Strange" - (Mrs Clutter) - P36

"Slightly odd but nice." - (Mrs Clutter) - P36

"Inexplicable despondency." - (Mrs Clutter) - P38

"She regretted not having completed the course." - (Mrs Clutter) - P37

"Maturity.... had reduced her voice to a single tone, that of apology." - (Mrs Clutter) - P36

"The bed she so rarely abandoned." - (Mrs Clutter) - P39

"Forgive me dear. I'm sure you'll never know what it is to be tired. I'm sure you'll always be happy..." - Mrs Clutter - P37

"Just to prove... that I once succeeded at something." - Mrs Clutter - P38

"It lingered like a cloud that might rain or might not." - (Mrs Clutter) - P38 - (Capote uses the symbol of a cloud to describe the "mood of misery" that "never altogether lifted" from Mrs Clutter. It represents how unpredictable her emotional behaviour can be which is common in those who suffer mental illness or a disorder.)

"They began to go their semi-separate ways." - (Mr & Mrs Clutter) - P38

"Little things really belong to you...They don't have to be left behind. You can carry them in a shoebox." - P39 - Mrs Clutter

"Wherever you go. You might be gone for a long time." - P39 - Mrs Clutter

"Or you might never come home. And - it's important.... to have with you something of your own. That's really yours." - Mrs Clutter - P39 -

(Her statement indicates that she, unlike the majority of her family, has never achieved the 'American Dream', and thus the only thing she really has are the small items that she takes with her to the hospital, at which she stays for long periods of time. This further demonstrates how the 'American Dream' may be unachievable and possibly a negative drawback as it is Dick and Perry's dire hunger to achieve it that brings death upon the Clutters.)

"A file clerk."

"She had liked it too well."

"Seemed...unchristian."

All (Mrs Clutter) and all on P39

"Better to lock the bedroom door and pretend not to hear." - (Mrs Clutter) - P40

"The room she so seldom left was austere." - (Mrs Clutter) - P40

"How will he remember me? As a kind of ghost." - Mrs Clutter - P41

"I'm not hot. I'm cold. I'm freezing. Lord, Lord, Lord!" - Mrs Clutter - P41

"I can't imagine you afraid. No matter what happened, you'd talk your way out of it." - Mrs Ashida (Mr Clutter) - P47

"No witnesses." - Dick - P48

"The plan was Dick's, and from first foot-fall to final silence, flawlessly devised." - (Dick) - P48

"The only sure thing is every one of them has to go." - Dick - P48

"Alone." - P49 - (Kenyon Clutter)

"...guns, horses, tools, machinery, even a book." - (Kenyon Clutter) - P51

"A sensitive and reticent boy." - (Kenyon Clutter) - P51

"Lives in a world of his own." - (Kenyon Clutter) - P51

"And that', he was lead to testify the next day, 'was the last I seen them." - Mr Helm - (About the Clutters) - P52 - (Capote mixes parts from the future with sections in the present in order to provide readers with an impression that the Clutters are murdered while the characters themselves are not aware of what's approaching them and thus the readers feel a part of a secret.)

"real and only friend." - Perry - (About Willie-Jay) - P53

"more than anything in the world." - Perry - (About a reunion he wants with Willie-Jay) - P53

"a poet, something rare and savable." - P53 - Willie-Jay - (About Perry, Perry also sees himself this way.)

"The compulsively superstitious person is also very often a serious believer in fate; that was the case with Perry." - (Perry) - P53

"He did give a damn - but who had ever given a damn about him.?" - (Perry) - P56

"Only now when I think back, I think somebody must have been hiding there. Maybe down among the trees. Somebody just waiting for me to leave." - Bobby Rupp - P63 - (Adds tension to the plot and creates an eerie atmosphere, foreshadowing the murders of the Clutters.)

"Perry was that rarity, 'a natural killer' - absolutely sane, but conscienceless." - (Dick about Perry) - P66

"Such a gift could, under his supervision be profitably exploited." - (Dick about Perry) - P66

Nancy used only the midnight hours "to be selfish and vain" - P67 - (Shows how just like her father, Nancy was hard-working and always doing something productive. Her and Mr Clutter are the only pair in the family that resemble the 'American Dream'.)

"The splendour of several events...and the drama of others...had caused her to usurp space allotted to the future." - (Nancy Clutter and her diary) - P67 -

(Capote puts this in the first chapter of the novel 'the last to see them alive' foreshadowing that Nancy, like the rest of her family, would be killed and thus the full diary symbolises Nancy's end as there is no space for her existence or her thoughts to be "allotted to the future.")

"Is this Nancy? Or that? Or that? Which is me?" - (Nancy Clutter) - P67 - (Nancy's experimentation with her handwriting in her diary symbolises that her adult identity has not yet fully formed.)

"Presently, the car crept forward." - (Dick and Perry) - P68

"It was a dress in which she was to be buried." - (Nancy Clutter) - P67 - (Capote foreshadows Nancy's death through his description of the dress that she set out to wear to church the morning after she was unknowingly going to be murdered as instead, "it was a dress in which she was to be buried".)

"But that's impossible. Can you imagine Mr Clutter missing church? Just to sleep?" - P69 - Nancy Ewalt - (Mr Clutter would never miss church, he that devout and that's how Nancy Ewalt knows that something is wrong. Her statement further foreshadows that the Clutters are dead.)

"I don't remember screaming. Nancy Ewalt says I did - screamed and screamed. I only remember Nancy's Teddy bear staring at me. And Nancy. And running." - Susan Kidwell - P70

"There's too much blood. There's blood on the walls. You didn't really look." - Nancy Ewalt - P71

"No she isn't. And don't you say it... It's only a nosebleed. She has them all the time... and that's all it is." - Susan Kidwell - P71 - (People refuse to believe that the Clutters have been murdered, they never considered it a possibility because the Clutters had achieved the 'American Dream', they were innocent, hardworking and respected people. Capote further suggests that the 'American Dream' doesn't protect anyone, it can easily be destroyed.")

"But the receiver was off the hook, and when I picked it up, I saw the line had been cut." - Mr Ewalt - P71 - (Capote use of structuring the past together with future statement from testimonies helps to foreshadow what's going to happen, Mr Ewalt's statement clarifies to the audience that the Clutter were robbed and killed by Dick and Perry as the "line had been cut.")

"Oh Bonnie, Bonnie what happened? You were so happy, you told me it was all over, you said you'd never be sick again." - Mrs Kidwell - P72

"Something radically wrong over at the Clutter place." - Mr Ewalt - (to the Garden City sheriff) - P72

"There's been some kind of accident." - (Garden City Sheriff radioed to his office) - P72

(Both these statements show how the people in the community are unwilling to believe that the Clutters are dead, although they know deep down that they are.) - P72

"She was wearing some jewellery, two rings - which is one of the reasons why I've always discounted robbery as a motive." - Larry Hendricks - P73

"Whoever had done it was much too smart and cool to have left behind any clues like that." - Larry Hendricks - P74

"No sign of a struggle, nothing disturbed." - Larry Hendricks - P74

"I took one look of Mr Clutter, and it was hard to look again." - Larry Hendricks - P74

"Because his throat had been cut, too." - Larry Hendricks (About Mr Clutter) - P74

"It was like nobody could believe it." - Larry Hendricks - P76

"Gentle, kindly people, people I knew - murdered." - Alfred Stoecklein - P76

"If it wasn't him, maybe it was you. Or somebody across the street. All the neighbours are rattlesnakes. Varmints looking for a chance to slam the door in your face, It's the same the whole world over. You know that." - P79 - Myrt/Mrs Clare

"But who hated the Clutters?" - Mrs Hartman- P81

"If something like this could happen to them, then who's safe?" - Mrs Hartman - P81

"It just shut you up. The strangeness of it. Going out there, where we'd always had such a welcome." - (One of Erhart's partners about visiting the Clutters) - P85

"Him that done it had it figured out to the final T. He knowed." - Alfred Stoecklein - P86

"Everything Herb had, he earned." - Andy Erhart - P87

"How was it possible that such effort, such plain virtue, could overnight be reduced to this - smoke, thinning as it rose and was received by the big, annihilating sky?" - P87 - (Capote criticises the 'American Dream' as something fragile, easily destroyed and yet it takes so much effort and time to obtain or achieve.)

"Semi-invalid...slept in a separate bedroom." - (Bonnie Clutter) - P93

"Of all the people in the world, the Clutters were the least likely to be murdered." - P93

"I've had all the locks changed." - Marie Dewey - P95

"Locks and bolts [were] the fastest going items." - P95

"Imagination, of course, can open any door - turn the key and let the terror walk right in." - P96

"Neighbours and old friends had suddenly to endure the unique experience of distrusting each other." - P96

"Once a thing is set to happen, all you can do is hope it won't." - Perry - P100 - (Shows his failure to take responsibility for his actions, choosing to blame fate instead.)

"What it comes down to is I want the diamonds more than I'm afraid of the snake." - Perry - P100

"Shrouded disciplinarians who whipped him for wetting his bed." - P100 - (The nuns who abused and traumatised Perry during his stay in an orphanage.)

"A bird taller than Jesus... a warrior-angel who blinded the nuns with its beak, fed upon their eyes, slaughtered them...then so gently lifted him, enfolded him, winged him away to 'paradise'." - P101 - The 'yellow bird' is a symbol for Perry's escape from trauma and vengeance on those who have caused him suffering, it is his "avenging angel". It symbolises a separate powerful God or power figure that Perry looks up to in times of need.

"What kind of a person would do that - tie up two women... and then draw up the bed-covers, tuck them in, like sweet dreams and good night?" - (Alvin Dewey about the murderers being emotionally involved in some way.) - P111

"Emotionally involved with the victims, and felt for them, even as he destroyed them, a certain twisted tenderness." - P111

"To make the victim more comfortable." - P111