College was to teach me that I was one of life's journeymen, eager to excel but lacking the requisite gifts. Pat Conroy More Quotes by Pat Conroy More Quotes From Pat Conroy Each divorce is the death of a small civilization. Pat Conroy divorcemarriagecivilization The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life. Pat Conroy embracereasonteacher My mother, Southern to the bone, once told me, “All Southern literature can be summed up in these words: ‘On the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to Sister.’” She raised me up to be a Southern writer, but it wasn’t easy. Pat Conroy daddymothernight One of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family. Pat Conroy happy-familybornunhappy There is no teacher more discriminating or transforming than loss. Pat Conroy transforminglossteacher I could bear the memory, but I could not bear the music that made the memory such a killing thing. Pat Conroy killingbearsmemories Man wonders but God decides When to kill the Prince of Tides. Pat Conroy tideswondermen I prayed hard and only gradually became aware that this fierce praying was a way of finding prologue and entrance into my own writing. This came as both astonishment and relief. When I thought God had abandoned me, I discovered that He had simply given me a different voice to praise the inexhaustible beauty of the made world. Pat Conroy voicewritingworld I've always found paranoia to be a perfectly defensible position. Pat Conroy paranoiadignityfound Anyone who knows me well must understand and be sympathetic to my genuine need to be my own greatest hero. It is not a flaw of character; it is a catastrophe. Pat Conroy herocharacterneeds She had so mastered the strategies of camouflage that her own history had seemed a series of well-placed mirrors that kept her hidden from herself. Pat Conroy camouflagestrategymirrors Do you think that Hemingway knew he was a writer at twenty years old? No, he did not. Or Fitzgerald, or Wolfe. This is a difficult concept to grasp. Hemingway didn't know he was Ernest Hemingway when he was a young man. Faulkner didn't know he was William Faulkner. But they had to take the first step. They had to call themselves writers. That is the first revolutionary act a writer has to make. It takes courage. But it's necessary Pat Conroy menyearsthinking Baseball fans love numbers. They love to swirl them around their mouths like Bordeaux wine. Pat Conroy winebaseballnumbers Good writing is the hardest form of thinking. It involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear. If the writing is good, then the result seems effortless and inevitable. But when you want to say something life-changing or ineffable in a single sentence, you face both the limitations of the sentence itself and the extent of your own talent. Pat Conroy life-changingwritingthinking Writing is the only way I have to explain my own life to myself. Pat Conroy my-ownwritingway Laughter is the only strategy that has ever worked at all for me when my world is falling apart. Pat Conroy laughterworldfall I had come to a place where I was meant to be. I don't mean anything so prosaic as a sense of coming home. This was different, very different. It was like arriving at a place much safer than home. Pat Conroy arrivinghomemean William Ferris has long reigned as the unimpeachable source of the entire southern experience. His work on southern folklore and the composition of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture have made him both legendary and necessary. His book, The Storied South , is a love song to the South Bill helped illuminate. It's a crowning achievement of his own storied career. Pat Conroy careerssongbook Losing prepares you for the heartbreak, setback, and the tragedy that you will encounter in the world more than winning ever can. By licking your wounds you learn how to avoid getting wounded the next time. Pat Conroy encounterstragedywinning Except for memory, time would have no meaning at all. Pat Conroy memories
