255 Quotes by Patricia Highsmith

Finally, Carol said in a tone of hopelessness, "Darling, can I ask you to forgive me?" The tone hurt Therese more than the question. "I love you, Carol." "But do you see what it means?

Her life was a series of zigzags. At nineteen, she was anxious.

It was the seventh or eighth floor, she couldn't remember which. A streetcar crawled past the front of the hotel, and people on the sidewalk moved in every direction, with legs on either side of them, and it crossed her mind to jump.

He realised what a horrible mistake, crime even, he had been guilty of in demanding such a barbaric thing as a girl’s hand.

Fantasy, an unflagging optimism is necessary for a writer at all stages of this rough game. A kind of madness is therefore necessary, when there is every logical reason for a state of depression and discouragement. Perhaps the fact that I can react with utter gloom to this is what keeps me from being psychotic and keeps me merely neurotic. I am doing quite a good day's work today. But I am also aware of the madness that actually sustains me, and I am not made more comfortable or happy by it.

And when all's said and done, the final comment will be (from me at least) so what? I'll live with my neuroses. I'll try to develop patience, with my handicapped personality. But I prefer to live with my neuroses and try to make the best of them.

The justice I have received, I shall give back.

One interesting thing is that a stage is reached when nothing hurts any more. Things cannot become any worse, finally, for the one who is really depressed.

The desperate boredom of the wealthy, that he often spoke of to Anne. It tended to destroy rather than create. And it could lead to crime as easily as privation.