I started writing when I was eight – out of the blue, uninspired by any example. I’d never known anyone who wrote; indeed, I knew few people who read. But the fact was, the only four things that interested me were: reading books, going to the movies, tap dancing, and drawing pictures. Then one day I started writing, not knowing that I had chain myself for life to a noble but merciless master. When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended only for self-flagellation.

But of course I didn’t know that. I wrote adventure stories, murder mysteries, comedy skits, tales that had been told me by former slaves and Civil War veterans. It was a lot of fun – at first. It stopped being fun when I discovered the difference between good writing and bad, an then made an even more alarming discovery; the difference between good writing and true art; it is subtle but savage. And after that, the whip came down!

Truman Capote, préface de Music for chameleons.