1
Finally, Carol said in a tone of hopelessness, "Darling, can I ask you to forgive me?" The tone hurt Therese more than the question. "I love you, Carol." "But do you see what it means?Patricia Highsmith
2
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
3
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 monster between them, with each of them caught in a fist.Patricia Highsmith
4
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 reason somewhere. I think even the poets would agree with me.Patricia Highsmith
5
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, and it crossed her mind to jump.Patricia Highsmith
6
Her life was a series of zigzags. At nineteen, she was anxious.Patricia Highsmith
7
At any rate, Therese thought, she was happier than she ever had been before. And why worry about defining everything?Patricia Highsmith
8
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 now because she was a different person, and it was like meeting Carol all over again, but it was still Carol and no one else. It would be Carol, in a thousand cities, a thousand houses, in foreign lands where they would go together, in heaven and in hell. Therese waited. Then as she was about to go to her, Carol saw her, seemed to stare at her incredulously a moment while Therese watched the slow smile growing, before her arm lifted suddenly, her hand waved a quick, eager greeting that Therese had never seen before. Therese walked toward her.Patricia Highsmith
9
...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 lucky suddenly. It was so easy for a man and woman to find each other, to find someone who would do, but for her to have found Carol-Patricia Highsmith
10
What else mattered except being with Carol, anywhere, anyhow?Patricia Highsmith
11
They roared into the Lincoln Tunnel. A wild, inexplicable excitement mounted in Therese as she stared through the windshield. She wished the tunnel might cave in and kill them both, that their bodies might be dragged out together. She felt Carol glancing at her from time to time.Patricia Highsmith
12
Was it love or wasn't it that she felt for Carol? And how absurd it was that she didn't even know. She had heard about girls falling in love, and she knew what kind of people they were and what they looked like. Neither she nor Carol looked like that. Yet the way she felt about Carol passed all the tests for love and fitted all the descriptions.Patricia Highsmith
13
She thought of people she had seen holding hands in movies, and why shouldn't she and Carol?Patricia Highsmith
14
I let it boil and it's got scum on it, " Carol said annoyedly. "I'm sorry." But Therese loved it, because she knew this was exactly what Carol would always do, be thinking of something else and let the milk boil.Claire Morgan
15
Do people always fall in love with things they can't have?'' Always, ' Carol said, smiling, too.Patricia Highsmith