Publishing her first novel -- the cultural classic "Strangers on a Train" -- in 1950, Patricia Highsmith is forever renowned for her psychological thrillers that also include the much revered Tom Ripley Series. Drawing much of her influence from existential literature, Highsmith's style became trademarked for her exploration of personal identity against the white noise of popular morality.

However, much like her fellow literary peer James Baldwin, Highsmith is also credited for as one of very few writers of her time who gave voice to the LGBT community. With the circulation of her novel "The Price of Salt" two years after her first book which was issued under the pseudonym Claire Morgan, it became the first work in the canon of American Literature where a lesbian story was permitted to have a happy ending. Tailored into the motion picture "Carol" in 2015, Highsmith's 22 novels and countless short stories have since, received more than two dozen adaptions in the realm of cinema. Forever rendering the native of Fort Worth, Texas a living memory forever captured in words and pictures.

Critical of a world defined by rules for much of her career, Patricia Highsmith's legacy forever endures. In words and pictures where she remains a living memory. A memory that lives to remind us that there is no rule to deny us happiness from the world we exist and live in. If first, we can only come to the realization that we are meant to live because we exist.