Breakfast at Tiffany's Holly Golightly Quotes

I wondered if she'd often stolen. "I used to," she said. "I mean I had to. If I wanted anything. But I still do it every now and then, sort of to keep my hand in" (7.5).

A part of Holly knows that she might have to pick up and go at any moment, and she expects that she might have to struggle to survive. Living her life on the fly permanently affects her day-to-day actions.

Holly Golightly

Quote 23

"Then nothing," he shrugged. "By and by she went like she come, rode away on a horse" (1.26).

This is the end of Joe's story about Holly in Africa, but it's in the beginning pages of the novel itself. This passage prepares us for the transience that characterizes Holly for the rest of the narrative. She just comes and goes in Joe's story, just as she does in Capote's.

It was near the antique shop with the palace of a bird cage in its window, so I took her there to see it, and she enjoyed the point, its fantasy: "But still, it's a cage" (7.4).

Although this passage is similar to the one about the zoo, we think the birdcage is such a significant symbol that it's worth mentioning. Holly can appreciate the beauty of the cage, but she can't get in line with what it stands for.