Patricia Highsmith, on writing:

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.

- Patricia Highsmith.

Born on this day – Patricia Highsmith:

Patricia Highsmith

Writer

January 19, 1921 – February 4, 1995

Credits:

65 Great Tales Of Horror (1981); A Century of British Mystery and Suspense (2000); A Century of Great Suspense Stories (2001); A Dog's Ransom (1972); A Game for the Living (1958); A New Omnibus of Crime (2005); A Suspension of Mercy / The Story-Teller (1965); Books to Die For (2012); Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (2005); Chillers (1990); Crime Never Pays (2001); Crime Story Collection (2000); Deep Water (1957); Edith's Diary (1977); Eleven / The Snail Watcher and Other Stories (1970); Escape to Mexico: An Anthology of Great Writers (2002); Fifty Best Mysteries (1993); Found in the Street (1986); Great Baseball Stories (1990); Little Tales of Misogyny (1974); Mermaids on the Golf Course (1984); Murder Intercontinental (1996); Murder On The Railways (2003); Mystery Cats (1991); Nothing That Meets the Eye (1968); Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks: 1941-1995 (2021); People Who Knock on the Door (1983); Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction (1966); Ripley Under Ground (1970); Ripley Under Water (1991); Ripley's Game (1974); Simply The Best Mysteries, Edgar Award Winners And Front Runners (1970); Slowly, Slowly in the Wind (1979); Small g (1994); Sour Tales for Sweethearts (2015); Stranger: Dark Tales of Eerie Encounters (2002); Strangers on a Train (1950); Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes (1987); The 18th Pan Book of Horror Stories (1977); The 24th Pan Book of Horror Stories (1983); The Animal-Lover's Book of Beastly Murder (1975); The Black House (1981); The Blunderer (1954); The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980); The Campfire Collection: Ghosts, Beasts, and Things That Go Bump in the Night (2003); The Cry of the Owl (1962); The Glass Cell (1964); The Price of Salt / Carol (1952); The Selected Stories of Patricia Highsmith (2001); The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955); The Tremor of Forgery (1969); The Twelfth Pan Book of Horror Stories (1971); The Two Faces of January (1964); The Web She Weaves (1983); This Sweet Sickness (1960); Those Who Walk Away (1967); Verdict of Thirteen (1979).

Patricia Highsmith, on being an introvert and a writer:

My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.

- Patricia Highsmith.