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 HighsmithThen 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 HighsmithI know you have it in you, Guy," Anne said suddenly at the end of a silence, "the capacity to be terribly happy.
Patricia HighsmithThe 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 HighsmithThey were not friends. They didn't know each other. It struck Tom like a horrible truth, true for all time, true for the people he had known in the past and for those he would know in the future: each had stood and would stand before him, and he would know time and time again that he would never know them, and the worst was that there would always be the illusion, for a time, that he did know them, and that he and they were completely in harmony and alike. For an instant the wordless shock of his realization seemed more than he could bear.
Patricia Highsmith