“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.” PeopleLifeMindLyingImaginationFictionVisionMankindIdentityEgoAmbitionEmpathyHumanMadDisappointmentContactInsaneMiserableHypocrisySicknessDeceitAutismAvoidanceVisionsLoathePlanetAvoidOutsideSplitIdentitiesCharadeEmpathiseSelf NessSubsume Book:Patricia Highsmith, ζωή στο σκοτάδι Source: Patricia Highsmith, ζωή στο σκοτάδι
“As soon as [Patricia Highsmith] had stopped work, she felt purposeless and quite at a loss about what to do with herself. 'There is no real life except in working,' she wrote in her notebook, 'that is to say in the imagination.' It was in this state that she observed that only one situation would drive her to commit murder - being part of a family unit. Most likely, she thought, she would strike out in anger at a small child, felling them in one blow. But children over the age of eight, she surmised, would probably take two blows to kill. The reality of socialising with anyone, no matter how close, she said, left her feeling fatigued.” LifeChildrenPurposeImaginationWorkLossFamilySolitudeMurderChildAutismFatigueWorkingAspergersAspergers SyndromeFamily UnitSocialisingFatiguedAsperger SPurposeless Book:Patricia Highsmith, ζωή στο σκοτάδι Source: Patricia Highsmith, ζωή στο σκοτάδι
“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?” LoveLifeRomanceNatureSacrificeHonestHorrorMarriedNewsSafetyMental IllnessParentsThrillGood NewsLivesRetardedHorrorsFirst SightCosiness Book:Patricia Highsmith, ζωή στο σκοτάδι Source: Patricia Highsmith, ζωή στο σκοτάδι