Quotes from Patricia Highsmith

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.

And she did not have to ask if this were right, no one had to tell her, because this could not have been more right or perfect.

Thinking no more about it, he stepped off into that cool space, that fast descent to her, with nothing in his mind but a memory of a curve of her shoulder, naked, as he had never seen it.

In the middle of the block, she opened the door of a coffee shop, but they were playing one of the songs she had heard with Carol everywhere, and she let the door close and walked on. The music lived, but the world was dead. And the song would die one day, she thought, but how would the world come back to life? How would its salt come back?

Tom envied him with a heartbreaking surge of envy and self-pity.

I like to drink when I travel. It enhances things, don't you think?

Our actions and responsibilities are our own; what later returns to either haunt or applaud us is neither possible to predict nor always completely understandable.

Don't you want to forget it, if it's past? I don't know. I don't know just how you mean that. I mean, are you sorry? No. Would I do the same thing again? Yes. Do you mean with somebody else, or with her? With her, Therese said.

one blow in anger [would] kill, probably, a child from aged two to eight. Those over eight would take two blows to kill.

There was something demoniacal and insuperable about typographical errors, as if they were part of the natural evil that permeated man's existence, as if they had a life of their own and were determined to manifest themselves no matter what, as surely as weeds in the best-tended gardens.

And the hopelessness of herself, of ever being the person she wanted to be and of doing the things that person would do. Had all her life been nothing but a dream, and was this real?

She envied him. She envied him his faith there would always be a place, a home, a job, someone else for him. She envied him that attitude.

I'm not melancholic,' she protested, but the thin ice was under her feet again, the uncertainties. or was it that she always wanted a little more than she had, no matter how much she had?

A música vivia, mas o mundo estava morto. E a canção morreria um dia, pensou, mas como voltaria o mundo à vida? Como voltaria o seu sal?

to live against one's grain, that is degeneration by definition.

Why should Dickie want to come back to subways and taxis and starched collars and a nine-to- five job? Or even a chauffeured car and vacations in Florida and Maine? It wasn't as much fun as sailing a boat in old clothes and being answerable to nobody for the way

She envied him. She envied him his faith that there would always be a place, a home, a job, someone else for him. She envied him that attitude. She almost resented his having it.

Once the back of their hands brushed on the table, and Therese's skin there felt seperately alive and rather burning. There could not understand it, but it was so. Therese glanced at her face that was somewhat turned away, and again she knew that instant of half-recognition. And knew, too, that it was not to be believed. She had never seen the woman before. If she had, could she had forgotten?

Dusk was falling quickly. It was just after 7 P.M., and the month was October.

Don't you know I love you?' Carol said.

Therese had read about that special pleasure people got from the fact that someone they loved was attractive in the eyes of other people, too. She simply didn't have it.

The taste of Scotch, though Guy didn't much care for it, was pleasant because it reminded him of Anne. She drank Scotch, when she drank. It was like her, golden, full of light, made with careful art.

It shook Therese in the profoundest part of her where no words were, no easy words like death or dying or killing Those words were somehow future, and this was present. An inarticulate anxiety, a desire to know, know anything for certain, had jammed itself in her throat for a moment she felt she could hardly breathe.

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?