Patricia Duncker Quotes

Enjoy the best quotes of Patricia Duncker. Explore, save & share top quotes by Patricia Duncker.

They were from different generations, culture, nations. But even these things did not divide them so much as their separate conceptions of what it meant to be a woman.

Patricia Duncker
Save QuoteView Quote
Similar Quotes by Patricia Duncker

They were from different generations, culture, nations. But even these things did not divide them so much as their separate conceptions of what it meant to be a woman.

Patricia Duncker
Save QuoteView Quote

The love between a writer and a reader is never celebrated.

Patricia Duncker, Hallucinating Foucault
Save QuoteView Quote

Suddenly, she employed those very English weapons: devious good manners and a rapid change of subject.

Patricia Duncker, Miss Webster and Chérif
Save QuoteView Quote

[Some dogs] develop blood feuds with other dogs that are so serious that the only silver lining is a dog's inability to build nuclear weapons in the backyard. -- Patricia McConnell, A Tale of Two Species

Patricia McConnell
Save QuoteView Quote

My name is Patricia Lauren Bordeaux, and I, like my creator before me, am a very lonely vampire.

S.C. Parris, A Night of Frivolity
Save QuoteView Quote

Early in 1967 Highsmith's agent told her why her books did not sell in paperback in America. It was, said Patricia Schartle Myrer, because they were 'too subtle', combined with the fact that none of her characters were likeable. 'Perhaps it is because I don't like anyone,' Highsmith replied. 'My last books may be about animals'.

Andrew Wilson, Patricia Highsmith, Ζωή στο σκοτάδι
Save QuoteView Quote

People who fell in love at first sight, rushed home to their parents to tell them the good news and subsequently married were, [Patricia Highsmith] thought, retarded. Rather, a more honest appraisal of the nature of love positions it nearer to the horrors of mental illness. How else could you explain the fact that so many people were prepared to sacrifice the safety and cosiness of their lives for the thrill of a new romance?

Andrew Wilson, Patricia Highsmith, Ζωή στο σκοτάδι
Save QuoteView Quote

Those close to [Patricia Highsmith], particularly her family, often commented on how Highsmith's vision of reality was a warped one. In April 1947, she transcribed into her notebook what was, presumably, a real dialogue between herself and her mother, in which Mary accused her of not facing the world. Highsmith replied that she did indeed view the world 'sideways, but since the world faces reality sideways, sideways is the only way the world can be looked at in true perspective.' The problem, Highsmith said, was that her psychic optics were different to those around her, but if that was the case, her mother replied, then she should equip herself with a pair of new spectacles. Highsmith was not convinced. 'Then I need a new birth,' she concluded.

Andrew Wilson, Patricia Highsmith, Ζωή στο σκοτάδι
Save QuoteView Quote

If [Patricia Highsmith] saw an acquaintance walking down the sidewalk she would deliberately cross over so as to avoid them. When she came in contact with people, she realised she split herself into many different, false, identities, but, because she loathed lying and deceit, she chose to absent herself completely rather than go through such a charade. Highsmith interpreted this characteristic as an example of 'the eternal hypocrisy in me', rather her mental shape-shifting had its source in her quite extraordinary ability to empathise. Her imaginative capacity to subsume her own identity, while taking on the qualities of those around her - her negative capability, if you like - was so powerful that she said she often felt like her inner visions were far more real than the outside world. She aligned herself with the mad and the miserable, 'the insane man who feels himself one with all mankind, all life, because in losing his mind, he has lost his ego, his self-ness', yet realised that such a state inspired her fiction. Her ambition, she said, was to write about the underlying sickness of this 'daedal planet' and capture the essence of the human condition: eternal disappointment.

Andrew Wilson, Patricia Highsmith, Ζωή στο σκοτάδι
Save QuoteView Quote