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?

There is nobody in the world that you can't get if you really concentrate on it, if you really want them. You've got to want it to the exclusion of everything else.

Are the dead as lonesome as the living?

First, a gorgeous breakfast: just everything you can imagine from flapjacks and fried squirrel to hominy grits and honey in the comb...we're so impatient to get at the presents we can't eat a mouthful.

Never demean yourself by talking back to a critic, never. Write those letters to the editor in your head, but don't put them on paper.

I haven't anything against whores, except this: some of them may have an honest tongue but they all have dishonest hearts.

Of course, at their best, movies are anti-literature and, as a medium, belong not to writers, not to actors, but to directors.