Ripley Under Water Quotes

“Just what did happen to a corpse under water for four, five years, even three? the tarpaulin or canvas would rot, perhaps more than half of it would disappear; the stones would likely have fallen out, therefore, enabling the corpse to drift more easily, even rise a little, provided any flesh was left. But wasn't rising due to bloating? Tom thought of the word maceration, the flaking off in layers of the outer skin. Then what? The nibbling of fish? Or wouldn't the current have removed pieces of flesh until nothing but bones were left? The bloated period must be long past...”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“Tom heard the door knocker. There was both knocker and bell, but Tom made no judgment about people who used one or the other.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“Tom did not want to take his eyes from her. She had not lost or gained weight, he thought, and the curve of her thighs under the pale blue trousers seemed things of beauty, works of art. Her voice, as she chattered on, half in French and half in English, about Morocco, was music to him, more delicious than Scarlatti.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“One black crow flew over with its ugly cry that made Tom wince, as if at cacophonous music.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“As for books, Tom was glad to have Richard Ellmann’s biography of Oscar Wilde as bedtime reading that night. He was enjoying every paragraph. Something about Oscar’s life, reading it, was like a purge, man’s fate encapsulated; a man of goodwill, of talent, whose gifts to human pleasure remained considerable, had been attacked and brought low by the vindictiveness of hoi polloi, who had taken sadistic pleasure in watching Oscar brought low.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“Where did politeness end and insanity begin, or vice versa? Tom stood straight, reminding himself that courtesy and politeness were seldom a mistake, and dialed.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“He was getting into enraged female territory, which scared Tom. Who could deal with it?”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“If the sixty percent (Tom estimated) of Derwatt works now extant were to be signed B. Tufts, why would they be less valuable? The answer, of course, was because they had been marketed dishonestly, their market value, ever climbing and climbing still, based on the value of Derwatt’s name, which in fact had had little value when he died, because Derwatt had not been much known. But Tom had been at this impasse before.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“Tom loved the little shops interspersed with entrances to flats, the polished brass slits in the doors for letters, even the cozy late-night deli, well-lit and with fresh fruit, canned goods, shelves of bread and cereals and open at nearly midnight.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“Derwatt was from some dreary northern industrial town, Tom forgot which. It was the talking up that had done it, Tom realized. Curious. But then van Gogh had suffered from the lack of talking up. Who had talked Vincent up? No one, maybe only Theo.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“Tom felt his wrath mounting, and proceeded to tell Ed and Jeff about the house the Pritchards had rented, by way of letting off steam. Tom described the pseudo-antique furniture, and the pond in the lawn on which the afternoon sun shimmered, making designs on the living-room ceiling.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“There was indeed a screen between fact and memory, Tom realized, though he could not have given it a name. He could, of course, he thought a few seconds later, and it was self-preservation.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“Had he ever been on a camel? Tom wasn’t quite sure, even though the discomfort of being lifted up high seemed so real, so within his memory, that he felt it had happened. He would hate it. It would be something like looking down at a swimming pool while standing on a diving board five or six meters above the surface of the water. Jump! Why should he? Had anybody ever commanded him to jump? At summer camp? Tom wasn’t sure. Sometimes his imagination was as clear as a remembered experience.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“He liked to keep certain little things back from Heloise, little things that could only disturb her.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“But then—Tom’s spirits rose and consequently his self-confidence—maybe he could get a late afternoon plane today to Paris.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“Business. That had two meanings, Tom thought as he sipped his drink: industry, which it was, and phoniness, which by now half of it was.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“The similarity, Tom realized, was that he had to ask both men whether they preferred to stop their inquiries or be killed.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“how everything about Pritchard irked him, even the wristwatch, the stretchable gold-bracelet variety, expensive and flashy, with gold case for the watch, gold-colored face even, suitable for a pimp, Tom thought. Tom preferred infinitely his conservative Patek Philippe on a brown leather strap, which looked like an antique.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“Ah, gone were the days—and had there ever been many?—when he had written a postcard from Europe to Aunt Dottie, Tom admitted to himself, with the purpose of keeping in her good graces in order to inherit something. She had bequeathed him ten thousand dollars but had given her house, which Tom had liked and had had some hopes of acquiring, to another person, whose name Tom had forgotten, perhaps because he wanted to forget.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“She smiled back at him. He saw the curious dark lines in her lavender eyes that went from the pupil like spokes from a hub; a heavy image for something as beautiful as Heloise’s eyes.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“It was the restless (even in a chair), doubting, troubled mood of it which pleased Tom; that and the fact that it was a phony. It had place of honor in his house.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“Janice paused again, then came out with, “David just likes to see people wilt—if he can. If he can make them wilt.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“Easy money nourished the fantasy element in his existence, guaranteed the continued unreality, and at the same time food in the fridge and on the table.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“To Tom his practice, and the weekly visits and sessions with the Schubertly Roger Lepetit, were a form of discipline which he had come to love.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“Tom was curious about the Cynthia connection. That was a can of worms, if the Pritchards or anybody else—especially Cynthia Gradnor, who knew as well as the Buckmaster Gallery people that the last sixty-odd “Derwatts” were forgeries—ever opened it, and told the truth. No use trying to put the lid back on, because all those very expensive paintings would become next to worthless, except for eccentric collectors who were amused by good forgeries; like Tom, in fact, but how many people in the world were like him, with a cynical attitude toward justice and veracity?”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water

“Dickie Greenleaf. The beginning of his troubles, Tom thought. The first man he had killed, and the only one he regretted killing, really, the only crime he was sorry about.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water