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Laughter is the only strategy that has ever worked at all for me when my world is falling apart.

Pat Conroy

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
I was born into the century in which novels lost their stories, poems their rhymes, paintings their form, and music its beauty, but that does not mean I had to like that trend or go along with it. I fight against these movements with every book I write.
PAT CONROY

Along Beauty Book Born Movement Music Painting Poem Rhyme Sory Write
One of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family.
PAT CONROY

Born Family Get Gift Greatest One Unhappy Writer
Silence (can) be the most eloquent form of lying.
PAT CONROY

Eloquent Lie Most Silence
I can’t pass a bookstore without slipping inside, looking for the next book that will burn my hand when I touch its jacket, or hand me over a promissory note of such immense power that it contains the formula that will change everything about me.
PAT CONROY

Book Bookstore Burn Hand Inside Jacket Lock Next Pass Touch When Without
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.
PAT CONROY

Country Do Hemingway Knew Old People Person Think Writer Year
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

Bheartbreak Encounter Lose More Prepare Tragedy Will Win World
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

Anyone Genuine Greatest Hero Know Must Need Symoatheic Understand Well
The mind is an intricate mechanism that can be run on the fuels of both victory and defeatism.
PAT CONROY

Both Defeatism Fuel Intricate Mechanism Mind Run Victory
Baseball fans love numbers. They love to swirl them around their mouths like Bordeaux wine.
PAT CONROY

Around Baseball Bordeaux Fan Love Mouth Number Swirl Wine
Good writing is the hardest form of thinking.
PAT CONROY

Good Hardest Think Write
I have heard it said that an inoculation to the sights and smells of the Carolina lowcountry is an almost irreversible antidote to the charms of other landscapes, other alien geographies.
PAT CONROY

Alien Charm Geographic Heard Inoculation Landscape Sight Smell
Happiness is an accident of nature, a beautiful and flawless aberration.
PAT CONROY

Aberration Accident Bature Beautiful Flawless Happiness
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

Distort Geometry Human Imperfect Laughter Life Line Story Straight Time
Charleston has a landscape that encourages intimacy and partisanship.
PAT CONROY

Encourage Landscape Partisanship People Person
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

Laughter is the only strategy that has ever worked at all for me when my world is falling apart.

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Laughter is the only strategy that has ever worked at all for me when my world is falling apart.

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