«5/17/50 Writing, of course, is a substitute for the life I cannot live, am unable to live. All life, to me, is a search for the balanced diet, which does not exist. For me. Alas, I am twenty-nine, and I cannot stand more than five days of the life I have invented as the most ideal.»
Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks: 1941–1995
