In "Breakfast at Sally Bowles", Ingrid Norton of Open Letters Monthly pointed out Capote's debt to Christopher Isherwood, one of his mentors, in creating the character of Holly Golightly: "Breakfast at Tiffany's is in many ways Capote's personal crystallization of Isherwood's Sally Bowles."[25]
Truman Capote's aunt, Marie Rudisill, notes that Holly is a kindred spirit of Miss Lily Jane Bobbit, the central character of his short story "Children on Their Birthdays". She observes that both characters are "unattached, unconventional wanderers, dreamers in pursuit of some ideal of happiness".[26]
Capote said Golightly was the favorite of his characters.[27]
The novella's prose style prompted Norman Mailer to call Capote "the most perfect writer of my generation," adding that he "would not have changed two words in Breakfast at Tiffany's".[28]
