" [Patricia Highsmith] had experienced at first hand many of Ripley's characteristics - splintered identity, insecurity, inferiority, obsession with an object of adoration, and the violence that springs from repression. Like her young anti-hero, she knew that in order to survive, it was necessary to prop oneself up with a psychological fantasy of one's own making. 'Happiness, for me, is a matter of imagination,' she wrote in her notebook while writing The Talented Mr. Ripley. 'Existence is a matter of unconscious elimination of negative and pessimistic thinking. I mean, to survive at all. And this applies to everyone. We are all suicides under the skin, and under the surface of our lives. "
― Andrew Wilson , Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith
![Andrew Wilson quote : [Patricia Highsmith] had experienced at first hand many of Ripley's characteristics - splintered identity, insecurity, inferiority, obsession with an object of adoration, and the violence that springs from repression. Like her young anti-hero, she knew that in order to survive, it was necessary to prop oneself up with a psychological fantasy of one's own making. 'Happiness, for me, is a matter of imagination,' she wrote in her notebook while writing <i>The Talented Mr. Ripley</i>. 'Existence is a matter of unconscious elimination of negative and pessimistic thinking. I mean, to survive at all. And this applies to everyone. We are all suicides under the skin, and under the surface of our lives.](/image/953212.jpg)