It was Proust

[breathedout]

It was Proust, after all, who wrote that neurosis gives plot to life, and Pat’s own plot, like that of most of her characters, was founded on repetition. She did the same things over and over again. For variation, she tried to do them all at once.

—Joan Schenkar, The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith (Introduction: “A Note on Biography”)