Patricia Highsmith Quotes

Ripley is married. And he`s not lost. He has his feet on the ground.

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

Robert Walker as Bruno was excellent. He had elegance and humor, and the proper fondness for his mother.

I like to work for four or five hours a day. I aim for seven days a week.

I only know it takes weeks to recover, as if one had been in a car accident.

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

A few years ago, there were requests to me, Can we make this? I said that I have no rights. Contact the Hitchcock estate, which won`t release it for a remake.

I didn`t hang around films. I don`t know if I`d ever seen Hitchcock`s The Lady Vanishes.

I don`t set the alarm to get up. I get up when I feel like it.

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.

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.

I hope it will be set in California. In a way, I made a mistake, because a New Jersey policeman can`t operate that way in New York. But in California, he can move between different counties.

I hated cracking the whip, and these juries turn into political things.

I prefer to live in the country where it`s quiet. Woody Allen movies there are dubbed into Italian.

I think J.D. Salinger is correct in granting no interviews, and in making no speeches.

Some fellow from the Third World kept hammering for prizes for a Communist film which was rotten.

I don`t think Ripley is gay. He appreciates good looks in other men, that`s true. But he`s married in later books. I`m not saying he`s very strong in the sex department. But he makes it in bed with his wife.

I can`t write if someone else is in the house, not even the cleaning woman.

I have no television - I hate it.

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.

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

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.

My imagination functions much better when I don`t have to speak to people.