Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist and short story writer, born on January 19, 1921, in Fort Worth, and associated with the movement of modernist literature.
Highsmith was educated at Barnard College, and her career spanned nearly five decades. She worked across multiple forms, producing novels, short stories, and screenwriting, and composed in English throughout. Her work gave rise to more than two dozen film adaptations over the course of that career.
Among her notable works are Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and The Price of Salt. She received the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière as well as the rank of Officer of Arts and Letters. Novelist Graham Greene dubbed her "the poet of apprehension," a phrase that became part of how her work was publicly identified.
Highsmith died on February 4, 1995, in Locarno. Her association with modernist literature, combined with the recognition she received through awards and the enduring adaptation of her fiction into film, marks the broad shape of a career that extended from the early postwar decades to the mid-1990s.
Quotes by Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith's insights on:
I was in New York. Hitchcock was in California. He rang me to make a report on his progress and said, I'm having trouble. I've just sacked my second screenwriter.
That wasn't a bad price for a first book. My agent upped it as much as possible. I was 27 and had nothing behind me. I was working like a fool to earn a living and pay for my apartment.
Carol looked at her, as if really seeing her for the first time that evening, and under her eyes that went from her face to her hands in her lap, Therese felt like a puppy Carol had bought at a roadside kennel, that Carol had just remembered was riding beside her.
I was in New York. Hitchcock was in California. He rang me to make a report on his progress and said, I’m having trouble. I’ve just sacked my second screenwriter.
Therese could not think of a single question that would be proper to ask, because all her questions were so enormous.
It is then good to remember that artists have existed and persisted, like the snail and coelacanth and other changing forms of organic life since long before governments were dreamed of.
I have Graham Greene’s telephone number, but I wouldn’t dream of using it. I don’t seek out writers because we all want to be alone.
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.