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No story is a straight line. The geometry of a human life is too imperfect and complex, too distorted by the laughter of time and the bewildering intricacies of fate to admit the straight line into its system of laws.

Pat Conroy

We die long before women do, with our hearts exploding or our blood pressure rising or our livers eaten away by alcohol because that lake of grief inside us has no outlet.
PAT CONROY

Alcohol Away Blood Exploit Heart Liver Eaten Outlet Pressure Sie Women
There is no teacher more discriminating or transforming than loss.
PAT CONROY

Discriminating Loss More No Teacher Transform
I stood face to face with the moon and the ocean and the future that spread out with all its bewildering immensity before me.
PAT CONROY

Before Bewilder Face Future Immensity Moon Ocean Spread Stood
Music could ache and hurt, that beautiful music was a place a suffering man could hide.
PAT CONROY

Ache Beautiful Hide Hurt Man Music Place Suffer
You can be moved profoundly by other vistas, by other oceans, by soaring mountain ranges, but you can never be seduced. You can even forsake the lowcountry, renounce it for other climates, but you can never completely escape the sensuous, semitropical pull of Charleston and her marshes.
PAT CONROY

Climate Escape Mountain Move Ocean Other Profound Renounce Way
Here is all I ask of a book- give me everything. Everything, and don’t leave out a single word.
PAT CONROY

All Ask Book Everything Give Here Leave Single Word
I’ve always found paranoia to be a perfectly defensible position.
PAT CONROY

Always Defensible Found Paranoia Perfectly Position
I do not have any other way of saying it. I think it happens but once and only to the very young when it feels like your skin could ignite at the mere touch of another person. You get to love like that but once.
PAT CONROY

Any Feel Happen Once Only Other Say Skin Think Way When Young
Man wonders but God decides When to kill the Prince of Tides.
PAT CONROY

Decide God Kill Man Prince Tide Wonder
Every woman I had ever met who walked through the world appraised and classified by an extraordinary physicality had also received the keys to an unbearable solitude. It was the coefficient of their beauty, the price they had to pay.
PAT CONROY

Appraise Classified Ever Every Extraordinary Met Physicality Walk Woman World
I was born and raised on a Carolina sea island and I carried the sunshine of the low-country, inked in dark gold, on my back and shoulders.
PAT CONROY

Born Carolina Carry Sunshine Country Dark Gold Ink Island Low Raised Sea
Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.
PAT CONROY

Again Chamber End never Once Over Play Quester Travel Voyage
I loved my parents… but that can never change the fact that my father’s violence ruined my childhood.
PAT CONROY

Change Childhood Fact Father Love never Parent Run Violence
My attraction to story is a ceaseless current that runs through the center of me. My inexhaustible ardor for reading seems connected to my hunger for storylines that show up in both books and in the great tumbling chaos of life.
PAT CONROY

Attraction Ceaseless Center Current Run Story
Mama always taught her children that words were pretty, but anyone can talk. She said, pay attention to that man or woman who acted, who did, who performed. She taught us to trust in thing we could see, not that we heard.
PAT CONROY

Always Anyone Can Children Mama Pretty Talk Taught Wor
It’s impossible to explain to a Yankee what `tacky’ is. They simply have no word for it up north, but my God, do they ever need one.
PAT CONROY

Ever Explain God Impossible Need North Simply Tacky Word

No story is a straight line. The geometry of a human life is too imperfect and complex, too distorted by the laughter of time and the bewildering intricacies of fate to admit the straight line into its system of laws.

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No story is a straight line. The geometry of a human life is too imperfect and complex, too distorted by the laughter of time and the bewildering intricacies of fate to admit the straight line into its system of laws.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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