Patricia Highsmith

It was like looking back at another person to remember himself then, a skinny, snivelling wretch with an eternal cold in the nose, who had still managed to win a medal for courtesy, service, and reliability.

And it was astounding and pitiful how naive he had been, how little he had known about the way the world worked, as if he had spent so much of his time hating Aunt Dottie and scheming how to escape her, that he had not had enough time to learn and grow.

Tom cursed himself for having been so heavy-handed and so humourless today. Nothing he took desperately seriously ever worked out. He'd found that out years ago.

To continue with the neck-sticking, I don't say that Tom is going to do anything actively bad to you, but I know that he has a subtly bad influence on you. You act vaguely ashamed of being around him when you are around him, do you know that?

In Europe, Tom gathered, inadequate heating was a hallmark of chic in winter, like the iceless martini in summer.

Would one thing after another come up to thwart him—murder, suspicion, people?

Thanks for all the wonderful memories. They're like something in a museum already or something preserved in amber, a little unreal, as you must have felt yourself always to me.

reminded her of conversations at tables, on sofas, with people whose words seemed to hover over dead, unstirrable things, who never touched a string that played. And when one tried to touch a live string, looked at one with faces as masked as ever, making a remark so perfect in its banality that one could not even believe it might be subterfuge.

just how she had happened to land here—she had answered an ad, of course, but that didn't explain fate—and what was coming next instead of a stage-designing job. Her life was a series of zigzags. At nineteen, she was anxious.

Mrs. Hendrickson nodded agreement, Roberta touched her shoulder familiarly, and Therese felt a small start of jealousy. Jealousy, though she didn't care in the least for Mrs. Hendrickson, even disliked her.