Breakfast at Tiffany’s

by

Truman Capote

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O.J. Berman Character Analysis

O.J. Berman is a talent agent who meets Holly when she’s living in Los Angeles. Right away, he tries to help her become a movie star, teaching her how to drop her accent, though he doesn’t even know what the accent actually is or, for that matter, where Holly used to live. In fact, O.J. tells the narrator at a party that he’ll probably never know where Holly’s from, since she’s such a “phony.” He feels this way about Holly because she moved to New York without telling him, even though he had just gotten her an audition to be in a major movie. A man always looking for new ways to make money, O.J. is mildly interested in the narrator’s writing when Holly shows it to him, though he thinks the narrator should write about less trivial matters—an opinion that Holly shares and that, incidentally, creates a temporary rift between her and the narrator. And though O.J. thinks Holly is something of a fraud, he doesn’t hesitate to post her bail when she’s arrested, insisting that he doesn’t owe her anything, though he notes that he wants to help her.

O.J. Berman Quotes in Breakfast at Tiffany’s

The Breakfast at Tiffany’s quotes below are all either spoken by O.J. Berman or refer to O.J. Berman. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Female Independence and Freedom Theme Icon
).
Breakfast at Tiffany’s Quotes

“If I do feel guilty, I guess it’s because I let him go on dreaming when I wasn’t dreaming a bit. I was just vamping for time to make a few self-improvements: I knew damn well I’d never be a movie star. It’s too hard; and if you’re 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 to 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.”

Related Characters: Holly Golightly (Lulamae) (speaker), The Narrator, O.J. Berman
Related Symbols: Tiffany’s
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:
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O.J. Berman Quotes in Breakfast at Tiffany’s

The Breakfast at Tiffany’s quotes below are all either spoken by O.J. Berman or refer to O.J. Berman. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Female Independence and Freedom Theme Icon
).
Breakfast at Tiffany’s Quotes

“If I do feel guilty, I guess it’s because I let him go on dreaming when I wasn’t dreaming a bit. I was just vamping for time to make a few self-improvements: I knew damn well I’d never be a movie star. It’s too hard; and if you’re 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 to 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.”

Related Characters: Holly Golightly (Lulamae) (speaker), The Narrator, O.J. Berman
Related Symbols: Tiffany’s
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis: