46+ Patricia Highsmith Quotes On Nature, Society And Author

Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist known for her psychological thrillers, which often revolved around themes of identity, sexuality, and morality. Her most famous works include Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and The Price of Salt. She was also an acclaimed short story writer, publishing several collections of stories throughout her career. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Patricia Highsmith on life, love, nature.

Top 10 Patricia Highsmith Quotes

1. Life is a long failure of understanding ... a long, mistaken shutting of the heart.
2. One situation – maybe one alone – could drive me to murder: family life, togetherness.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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?
6. The night was a time for bestial affinities, for drawing closer to oneself.
7. 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.
8. Every man is his own law court and punishes himself enough.
9. Robert Walker as Bruno was excellent. He had elegance and humor, and the proper fondness for his mother
10. I prefer to live in the country where it's quiet. Woody Allen movies there are dubbed into Italian.

Patricia Highsmith Short Quotes

• I think J.D. Salinger is correct in granting no interviews, and in making no speeches
• Dusk was falling quickly. It was just after 7 P.M., and the month was October.
• I don`t set the alarm to get up. I get up when I feel like it.
• I think people often try to find through sex things that are much easier to find in other ways.
• Everything human is alien to me.
• I have no television - I hate it.
• Honesty, for me, is usually the worst policy imaginable.
• The justice I have received, I shall give back.
• Honestly, I don't understand why people get so worked up about a little murder!
• It always gets late with you. - Is that a compliment?

Patricia Highsmith Quotes About Love

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

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

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

Patricia Highsmith Quotes About Writing

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

If people have bought something of mine, they know by now that I will decline writing it for the movies — Patricia Highsmith

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

I can't write if someone else is in the house, not even the cleaning woman. — Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

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

The conversation seemed just as boring and forgettable as details of American history around 1805, for example. — Patricia Highsmith

He loved possessions, not masses of them, but a select few that he did not part with.They gave a man self-respect. Not ostentation but quality, and the love that cherished the quality. Possessions reminded him that he existed, and made him enjoy his existence. It was as simple as that. And wasn' t that worth something? He existed. — Patricia Highsmith

I don't want to know movie directors. I don't want to be close to them. I don't want to interfere with their work. I don't want them to interfere with mine. — Patricia Highsmith

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 — Patricia Highsmith

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 — Patricia Highsmith

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

But there was not a moment when she did not see Carol in her mind, and all she saw, she seemed to see through Carol. That evening, the dark flat streets of New York, the tomorrow of work, the milk bottle dropped and broken in her sink, became unimportant. She flung herself on her bed and drew a line with a pencil on a piece of paper. And another line, carefully, and another. A world was born around her, like a bright forest with a million shimmering leaves. — Patricia Highsmith

Anticipation! It occurred to him that his anticipation was more pleasant to him than the experiencing. — Patricia Highsmith

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. — Patricia Highsmith

He liked the fact that Venice had no cars. It made the city human. The streets were like veins, he thought, and the people were the blood, circulating everywhere. — Patricia Highsmith

Perhaps it was freedom itself that choked her. — Patricia Highsmith

How easy it was to lie when one had to lie! — Patricia Highsmith

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

I find the public passion for justice quite boring and artificial. — Patricia Highsmith

For neither life nor nature cares if justice is ever done or not. — Patricia Highsmith

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

I know you have it in you, Guy," Anne said suddenly at the end of a silence, "the capacity to be terribly happy. — Patricia Highsmith

Life Lessons by Patricia Highsmith

1. Patricia Highsmith's work emphasizes the importance of understanding and accepting human complexity, showing that even the most seemingly despicable characters can have redeeming qualities.
2. Her work also highlights the power of empathy, showing how understanding and connecting with people can lead to meaningful relationships and positive change.
3. Finally, Highsmith's work emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and introspection, showing that understanding one's own motivations and emotions can lead to greater self-awareness and personal growth.