Patricia Highsmith Quotes

Quotes about:

• My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Quiet People, Communication, Imagination

  74 Copy quote

• The first person you should think of pleasing, in writing a book, is yourself. If you can amuse yourself for the length of time it takes to write a book, the publisher and the readers can and will come later.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  28 Copy quote

• My New Year’s Eve Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle — may they never give me peace. (New Year's Eve, 1947)

  Patricia Highsmith

  New Year, Memories, Hate

  31 Copy quote

• Life is a long failure of understanding ... a long, mistaken shutting of the heart.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Heart, Long, Understanding

  23 Copy quote

• For neither life nor nature cares if justice is ever done or not.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Umpires, Justice, Done

  "The talented Ms Highsmith", www.theguardian.com. January 27, 2000.

  15 Copy quote

• And no book, and possibly no painting, when it is finished, is ever exactly like the first dream of it.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Dream, Art, Book

  19 Copy quote

• Honestly, I don't understand why people get so worked up about a little murder!

  Patricia Highsmith

  People, Littles, Murder

  8 Copy quote

• Everything human is alien to me.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Aliens, Humans

  24 Copy quote

• Each book is, in a sense, an argument with myself, and I would write it, whether it is ever published or not.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Book, Writing, Argument

  23 Copy quote

• Honesty, for me, is usually the worst policy imaginable.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Honesty, Worst, Policy

  4 Copy quote

• When I am thickening my plots, I like to think 'What if ... What if ... ' Thus my imagination can move from the likely, which everyone can think of, to the unlikely-but-possible, my preferred plot.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Moving, Thinking, Imagination

  13 Copy quote

• Every man is his own law court and punishes himself enough.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Men, Law, Crime

  Patricia Highsmith (2001). “Strangers on a Train”, p.252, W. W. Norton & Company

  10 Copy quote

• One situation – maybe one alone – could drive me to murder: family life, togetherness.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Murder, Togetherness, Family Life

  19 Copy quote

• 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.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Dream, Numbers, Want

  18 Copy quote

• I think people often try to find through sex things that are much easier to find in other ways.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Sex, Thinking, People

  Patricia Highsmith (2015). “The Price of Salt: (Illustrated Edition)”, p.82, She Winked Press

  11 Copy quote

• I should love to do a novel, about one abnormal character seeing present-day life, very ordinary life, yet arresting through it, abnormality, until at the end the reader sees, and with little reluctance, that he is not abnormal at all, and that the main character might as well be himself.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Character, Ordinary, Abnormal

  26 Copy quote

• 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.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Mistake, Outlook On Life, People

  Patricia Highsmith (2008). “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, p.65, W. W. Norton & Company

  14 Copy quote

• The night was a time for bestial affinities, for drawing closer to oneself.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Night, Drawing, Affinity

  Patricia Highsmith (2001). “Strangers on a Train”, p.144, W. W. Norton & Company

  14 Copy quote

• January. It was all things. And it was one thing, like a solid door. Its cold sealed the city in a gray capsule. January was moments, and January was a year. January rained the moments down, and froze them in her memory: [...]Every human action seemed to yield a magic. January was a two-faced month, jangling like jester's bells, crackling like snow crust, pure as any beginning, grim as an old man, mysteriously familiar yet unknown, like a word one can almost but not quite define.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Memories, Men, Two

  9 Copy quote

• In view of the fact that I surround myself with numbskulls now, I shall die among numbskulls, and on my deathbed shall be surrounded by numbskulls who will not understand what I am saying ... Whom am I sleeping with these days ? Franz Kafka.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Sleep, Views, Facts

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

  22 Copy quote

• 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

  Patricia Highsmith

  Flower, White, People

  Patricia Highsmith (2011). “The Price of Salt”, p.206, She Winked Press

  17 Copy quote

• But there were too many points at which the other self could invade the self he wanted to preserve, and there were too many forms of invasion: certain words, sounds, lights, actions his hands or feet performed, and if he did nothing at all, heard and saw nothing, the shouting of some triumphant inner voice that shocked him and cowed him.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Light, Self, Hands

  Patricia Highsmith (2001). “Strangers on a Train”, p.190, W. W. Norton & Company

  20 Copy quote

• I find the public passion for justice quite boring and artificial.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Passion, Justice, Boring

  "The talented Ms Highsmith", www.theguardian.com. January 27, 2000.

  7 Copy quote

• How was it possible to be afraid and in love... The two things did not go together. How was it possible to be afraid, when the two of them grew stronger together every day? And every night. Every night was different, and every morning. Together they possessed a miracle.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Morning, Night, Two

  Patricia Highsmith (2015). “The Price of Salt: (Illustrated Edition)”, p.221, She Winked Press

  16 Copy quote

• What was it to love someone, what was love exactly, and why did it end or not end? Those were the real questions, and who could answer them?

  Patricia Highsmith

  Real, Answers, Ends

  Patricia Highsmith (2015). “The Price of Salt: (Illustrated Edition)”, p.204, She Winked Press

  15 Copy quote

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