255 Quotes by Patricia Highsmith

Kick me out, she thought. What was in or out? How did one kick out an emotion?

Miss Highsmith is the poet of apprehension rather than fear. Fear after a time, as we all learned in the blitz, is narcotic, it can lull one by fatigue into sleep, but apprehension nags at the nerves gently and inescapably. We have to learn to live with it.

It was easy, after all, simply to open the door and escape. It was easy, she thought, because she was not really escaping at all.

I am the forever-seeking.

Death was only one more adventure untried.

It always gets late with you. – Is that a compliment?

Did the world always mete out just deserts?

Caviar. How very nice of them,” Carol said, looking inside a sandwich. “Do you like caviar?” “No. I wish I did.” “Why?” Therese watched Carol take a small bite of the sandwich from which she had removed the top slice of bread, a bit where the most caviar was. “Because people always like caviar so much when they do like it,” Therese said. Carol smiled, and went on nibbling, slowly. “It’s an acquired taste. Acquired tastes are always more pleasant – an hard to get rid of.

If the writer thinks about his material long enough, until it becomes a part of his mind and wakes up thinking about it- then at least when he starts to work, it will flow out as if by itself.