Patricia Highsmith (1921 – 1995) was a prominent American novelist, especially famous for her suspense and mystery works.
The works of Patricia Highsmith had a great impact on American society in the 20th century. Her novels revolve around crimes, psychopathic characters and the fight between good and evil. One of her works, Strangers on a Train (1950), was made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock.
Highsmith’s work has been described as depressive, pessimistic and dark His characters are usually marginalized, psychopaths and people with problems of all kinds. Thus, we are faced with an author who broke down the psyche of each of her characters.
In today’s article We are going to know the most famous phrases of Patricia Highsmith
1. A novel is an emotional thing.
It wouldn’t make sense if it didn’t stimulate our emotions.
2. The book must be protected while it is written.
Of vital importance for literature.
3. Don’t stop writing down your ideas no matter how insignificant they may seem.
A trick that many writers and journalists use to not forget good ideas.
4. A wave of panic brought him the relief of the known.
Recurring paradox in the real world.
5. I know that within you, Guy, you have a great capacity to be happy, immensely happy.
Extract from one of his novels, in an optimistic phrase.
6. Tom envied him intensely, with a mixed feeling of envy and pity for himself.
Another small fragment of The Talented Mr. Ripley.
7. Developing the idea for a narrative is a back-and-forth process, like knitting.
A novel is not written linearly.
8. It is easier to create from positive, loving emotions than from negative and hateful ones. Jealousy, although powerful, does not inspire me at all, and what it most resembles is cancer, which devours everything without giving anything in return.
Good emotions can take us much further.
9. Tom laughed when he thought of those words: sexual deviance. “Where’s the sex?” He asked himself. “And where is the deviation?” He looked down at Freddie and with a low, resentful voice he said: -Freddie Miles, you have been a victim of your own twisted mind.
An interesting fragment of one of his most famous novels.
10. How do you improve an argument? Improving or thickening a plot consists of creating complications for the hero or perhaps his enemies. These complications take effect when they take the form of unexpected events. If the writer is able to thicken the plot and surprise the reader, logically, the plot improves.
On the art of writing great literary works, according to Patricia Highsmith.
11. One thing is certain: the general public, readers and those who watch television want to be entertained, captured by a story. They want something unusual that they can remember, that shakes them, makes them laugh, something that they can talk about and even recommend to their friends.
This is what the public pursues, eager for new sensations and stories.
12. Perhaps I carry within me a serious and repressed criminal impulse, otherwise I would not be so interested in criminals or I would not write about them so often.
Somehow it must be explained why he liked so much to write about murders and crimes of all kinds.
13. Never apologize, never give explanations, said an English diplomat, and a French writer, Baudelaire, said that the only good parts of a book are the explanations that have been omitted from it.
The silences are most eloquent.
14. She liked that there were no cars in Venice. That gave the city a more human feel. The streets were its veins and the people who constantly came and went were its blood.
An opinion about one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
15. Girls are born women, said Margot, Thea’s mother. Boys are not born men. They have to learn to be. But the girls already have a woman’s character.
Reflection very similar to the philosophy developed by Simone de Beauvoir.
16. And I think that many crime novel writers (…) have to feel some kind of sympathy or identification with criminals, because, if they did not feel it, they would not be emotionally involved in the books they write.
Another of Patricia Highsmith’s opinions about a specific literary genre.
17. It is surprising how often a phrase written down in a notebook immediately leads to another phrase. An argument may develop as you take notes.
Once you have started narrating, continuing with it is much easier.
18. By development of a story I mean the process that must take place between the germ of a narrative and the detailed preparation of its plot.
Technical specifications related to writing.
19. Good short stories are written solely with the writer’s emotions, and usually their themes would be expressed similarly in a poem.
A reflection on this form of literature.
20. It is advisable to be honest with yourself before starting to write. As this can be done alone and in silence, there is no need for false vanities.
Being transparent with yourself helps not to close the creative flow.
21. From a dramatic point of view, criminals are interesting because, at least for a time, they are energetic, free-spirited, and do not submit to anyone.
A strange seductive power of those who break the rules.
22. Technique without talent lacks joy and surprise, there is nothing original. Talent without technique, in short, how can the world get to see it?
Two elements that must go hand in hand to produce something that society can recognize and praise.
23. I find the passion for justice quite boring and artificial, because neither life nor nature cares whether justice is done or not.
Justice is a human project linked to culture and the advancement of history.
24. I dedicate myself to creating because of the boredom caused by reality and the monotony of routine and the objects that surround me.
Monotony can push us towards creativity.
25. Writing is a way of organizing experience and life itself, and the need to do so is still present even if there is no audience.
One more way to organize ideas and beliefs.
26. The absence of news gave him a strange feeling of happiness and security, a feeling in which there was something unreal.
Living in a timeless state can create a feeling of unreality.
27.What makes the writing profession lively and exciting is the constant possibility of failure.
Another of Patricia Highsmith’s phrases that refer to the art of writing.
28. It is really impossible to run out of ideas, since they are everywhere. The world is full of germinal ideas.
Wherever something happens, there is a suggestive interpretation of the facts.
29. I can’t write if anyone else is in the house, not even the cleaning woman.
One of this artist’s personal hobbies.
30. The first person you should think about pleasing when writing a book is yourself.
We should not chase ghosts based on an audience that we neither feel close to nor, possibly, exists beyond our imagination.
31. First of all, what complicates me when writing about writing is the impossibility of establishing rules.
Having a wide range of possibilities in front of you can become paralyzing.
32. All art is based on the desire to communicate, the love of beauty, or a need to create order from disorder.
Breaking down the main components of art.
33. Perhaps, for a writer, luck consists in receiving good publicity at the most appropriate time.
In success, marketing matters more than many would be willing to admit.
34. Writing novels or stories is a game and, to continue playing, it is necessary that you never stop having fun.
The playful component is very important in creativity.
35. And no book, and possibly no painting, is, when it is finished, exactly the same as we dreamed it at the beginning.
As we put ideas into practice, they change.
36. He considered him a stingy and mean individual, who should have been born a woman to end his days as a spinster at the head of a girls’ school.
A stereotypical view of singleness in women that would cause controversy today.
37. The detective had all the appearance of a typical American car salesman, or a salesman of anything else; he was cheerful, presentable, of average intelligence, capable of chatting about baseball with a man or paying some silly compliment to a woman.
The affable character adapts to many situations.
38. I didn’t want to be a murderer. Sometimes he would forget completely that he had murdered. But sometimes, as was happening to him at that moment, it was impossible for him to forget. No doubt he had done it for a while that night, thinking about the meaning of possessions and why he liked living in Europe.
The fact of having killed usually leaves a mark in the memory.
Observing the lives of others is a stimulating exercise, because it allows you to imagine stories.
40. If one wanted to be happy, melancholic, thoughtful, courteous, it was enough to act as such at all times.
Character and personality are expressed in actions, not words.
41. He was such a good person that he took it for granted that all other human beings were too. Tom had almost forgotten that people like that existed.
One of Patricia Highsmith’s phrases about innocence.
42. I have made a decision: enjoy what I have until it runs out.
A simple way to live in the present.
43. I know that as a painter I will never cause a sensation…, but painting gives me great pleasure.
Not everything obeys the logic of achieving a good economic or social status.
44. Versatility was his thing, and the world was very wide. He swore to himself that as soon as he landed a job, he would keep it. Patience and perseverance! Up and forward!
The need to progress can become the main driving force that moves people.
45. It was strange and quite terrible to delve into something that may have been the fruit of your imagination and translate it into a real situation.
There comes a point when what belongs to the world of fantasy passes into the material.
46. ​​She was aware with horror of the moments that passed, as if they were part of an irrevocable time, an irrevocable happiness, because in those last seconds she could turn and see once again the face she would never see again.
Each moment is unique, and that idea can cause vertigo.
47. It was easy, after all, to simply open the door and escape. It was easy, she thought, because she wasn’t actually running away at all.
The simple fact of moving does not have to mean that we move away from what we want to avoid.
48. “I don’t get melancholic,” she protested, but once again there was a thin layer of ice under her feet, made of uncertainties. Or was it that she always wanted a little more than she had, no matter how much she had?
About vulnerability.
49. I believe that there is a specific reason for each friendship, just as there is a reason for certain atoms to unite and others not, in one case some factors are missing that are present in the other.
What unites two people does not escape the laws of nature.
50. But even that question was not clear enough. Maybe after all it was a declaration: I don’t want to die yet without knowing you.
There are experiences that can complete a life.
51. I want the sun to fall on my head like musical choruses. I imagine a sun like Beethoven, a wind like Debussy, and bird songs like Stravinsky. But the rhythm is totally mine.
Ideas that carry with them great energy.
52. The hopelessness that completely permeated the end of his life.
For some people, getting older means seeing their options shrink.
53. It was hot. The stove hissed. The room smelled of garlic and the typical rancidity of old age, of medicines and the peculiar metallic smell of Mrs. Robichek herself…
A description that expresses decadence and decrepitude.
54. His laughter was a sound more beautiful than music.
A typical aspect to appreciate in the person we are attracted to is laughter.
55. What she felt for Carol was almost love, but Carol was a woman. It’s not that she was crazy, it was happiness.
Social norms can cause certain forms of affection to be seen as forbidden.
56. (…) Carol seemed to know Chicago as well as Manhattan. She showed him the famous Loop neighborhood, and they stopped for a while to watch the trains and the traffic jam at five-thirty in the afternoon. She couldn’t compare to the madness that was New York at the same time.
About the chaotic character of big cities.
57. Happiness was a bit like flying, he thought, like being a kite. It depended on how much rope was released…
Freedom and happiness are very related concepts.
58. Happiness was like green ivy spreading across her skin, stretching out delicate tendrils, carrying flowers through her body.
A description that expresses the delicate nature of happiness.
59. I know what they would like, a void that they could fill. A person with his own ideas annoys them terribly.
The search for dependent people attracts some people who are prone to creating toxic relationships.
60. His life was a series of zigzags. At nineteen she was full of anxiety.
Uncertainty has psychological effects.
61. Once again there came to Therese the slightly sweet smell of her perfume, a smell that suggested a dark green silk, which seemed like her own, like the scent of a special flower.
Description that gives an idea of ​​what people with synesthesia experience.
62. I feel like I am in a desert with my hands outstretched and you are raining on me.
A powerful metaphor.
63. Friendships are the result of certain needs that can be completely hidden from both people, sometimes even forever.
One of Patricia Highsmith’s phrases about friendship.
64. He tried to keep a firm tone, but it was fake, like feigning self-control when someone you love is dead before your eyes.
A very crude way of expressing a mental state.
65. Is there anything more boring than the history of the past? Maybe a future without history.
It is necessary to know where you come from to understand what is happening.
66. The feeling that everyone was cut off from each other and that they were living on a totally wrong level, so that the meaning, the message, the love or whatever each life contained, never found its true expression.
Lack of communication can create seemingly parallel realities.
67. Even the pearl that hung from her earlobe seemed like something alive, like a drop of water capable of vanishing with a slight touch.
Association with objects can convey the character of a literary character.
68. He was sorry that she was not and could never be the girl he would have wanted, a girl who loved him passionately and wanted to go to Europe with him.
Sometimes, just the chemistry between two people is missing.
69. Fever stimulates the imagination.
Strong sensations lead us to generate rich imagery.
70. Obsessions are the only thing that matters.
A way of seeing life in which the emotional is at the center.
