As the new year began, [Patricia Highsmith] felt completely paralysed, incapable of reading or picking up the phone. 'I can feel my grip loosening on my self, ' she wrote. 'It is like strength failing in the hand that holds me above an abyss.' She wished there was a more awful-sounding word for what she was feeling than simply 'depression'. She wanted to die, she said, but then realised that the best course of action would be to endure the wretchedness until it passed. Her wish was, 'Not to die, but not to exist, simply, until this is over'. Andrew Wilson
About This Quote

Patricia Highsmith wanted to end her life because she was completely hopeless and depressed. She could not seem to find the will power to get up every day and fight back against her feelings of hopelessness. She wanted to end her life, but she did not want to end her life just yet. She wanted a way out, a way out that did not involve leaving behind a body that no one would care for or a life that had no meaning. She simply wanted the painful feelings that made up her life to be gone.

Source: Patricia Highsmith, I-II Ifi"I IfioiI"IIi1

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