"Carol was like a secret spreading through her."
- Highsmith
"And she did not have to ask if this was right, no one had to tell her, because this could not have been more right or perfect."
- Patricia Highsmith
"She had seen just now what she had only sensed before, that the whole world was ready to be their enemy, and suddenly what she and Carol had together seemed no longer love or anything happy but a mons..."
"I'd had a little feeling of destiny. Because, you see, what I mean about affinities is true from friendships down to even the accidental glance at someone on the street-there's always a definite reaso..."
"It was the seventh or eighth floor, she couldn't remember which. A streetcar crawled past the front of the hotel, and people on the sidewalk moved in every direction, with legs on either side of them,..."
"Her life was a series of zigzags. At nineteen, she was anxious."
"At any rate, Therese thought, she was happier than she ever had been before. And why worry about defining everything?"
"Carol raised her hand slowly and brushed her hair back, once on either side, and Therese smiled because the gesture was Carol, and it was Carol she loved and would always love. Oh, in a different way ..."
"...It had all happened in that instant she had seen Carol standing in the middle of the floor, watching her. Then the realization that so much had happened after that meeting made her feel incredibly ..."
"What else mattered except being with Carol, anywhere, anyhow?"