Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmithwas an American novelist and short story writer, known for her psychological thrillers, which led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. Highsmith wrote 22 novels, including her series of five novels with Tom Ripley as protagonist, and many short stories. Michael Dirda observed, "Europeans honored her as a psychological novelist, part of an existentialist tradition represented...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 January 1921
CountryUnited States of America
Everything human is alien to me.
It always gets late with you. - Is that a compliment?
Then Carol slipped her arm under her neck, and all the length of their bodies touched fitting as if something had prearranged it. Happiness was like a green vine spreading through her, stretching fine tendrils, bearing flowers through her flesh. She had a vision of a pale white flower, shimmering as if seen in darkness, or through water. Why did people talk of heaven, she wondered
The kiss became the narrowed center of the still point of the turning world, so that even the park was turning in comparison to the still peace at their lips.
The night was a time for bestial affinities, for drawing closer to oneself.
Anticipation! It occurred to him that his anticipation was more pleasant to him than the experiencing.
This is what I like, sitting at a table and watching people go by. It does something to your outlook on life. The Anglo-Saxons make a great mistake not staring at people from a sidewalk table.
And no book, and possibly no painting, when it is finished, is ever exactly like the first dream of it.
One situation – maybe one alone – could drive me to murder: family life, togetherness.
I think people often try to find through sex things that are much easier to find in other ways.
The justice I have received, I shall give back.
Honestly, I don't understand why people get so worked up about a little murder!
Honesty, for me, is usually the worst policy imaginable.
The conversation seemed just as boring and forgettable as details of American history around 1805, for example.