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I don’t know why it is that I have always been happier thinking of somewhere I have been or wanted to go, than where I am at the time. I find it difficult to be happy in the present.

Pat Conroy

But even her demons she invested with inordinate beauty, consecrated them with the dignity of her attention.
PAT CONROY

Attention Beauty Consecrate Democrats Dignity Even Inordinate Invest She
But no one walks out of his family without reprisals: a family is too disciplined an army to offer compassion to its deserters.
PAT CONROY

Army Compassion Deserter Discipline Family Offer Out Reprisal Walk
I lived with the terrible knowledge that one day I would be an old man still waiting for my real life to start. Already, I pitied that old man.
PAT CONROY

Day Knowledge Life Live Man Old One Real Start Still Terrible Wait
A library could show you everything if you knew where to look.
PAT CONROY

Everything Knew Library Look Show
Then another porpoise broke the water and rolled toward us. A third and fourth porpoise neared. The visitation was something so rare and perfect that we knew by instinct not to speak-and then as quickly as they had come, the porpoises moved away from us…
PAT CONROY

Another Btole Water Fourth Near Porpoise Roll Third Toward Us
You touch them as they quiver with a divine pleasure. You read them and they fall asleep to happy dreams for the next 10 years. If you do them the favor of understanding them, of taking in their portions of grief and wisdom, then they settle down in contented residence in your heart.
PAT CONROY

Asleep Down Dream Grief Happy Kindness Portion Quicker Settle Touch Wisdom Word
A family is one of nature’s solubles; it dissolves in time like salt in rainwater.
PAT CONROY

Dissolve Family Nature One Rainwater Salt Soluble Time
A story is a living thing, it moves and shifts.
PAT CONROY

Live Movem Shift Story Thing
Put me into a crusader’s armor, a cardinal’s vestments. Let me feel the pygmy’s heartbeat, the queen’s breast, the torturer’s pleasure, the Nile’s taste, or the nomad’s thirst.
PAT CONROY

Amor Feel Let Pleasure Put Queen Taste Torture
I discovered that He had simply given me a different voice to praise the inexhaustible beauty of the made world.
PAT CONROY

Beauty Different Discover Given Inexhaustible Made Praise Voice Word
Books are living things and their task lies in their vows of silence.
PAT CONROY

Book Lie Live Silence Tale Thing Vow
Then, too, I want a book so filled with story and character that I read page after page without thinking of food or drink because a writer has possessed me, crazed with an unappeasable thirst to know what happens next.
PAT CONROY

Character Fill Food Happen Page Think Unappealable Want
I would always be a better hater of things and institutions than a lover of them.
PAT CONROY

Always Better Hater Institution Lover Thing Would
Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends. That the book accompanies the reader forever from that day forward is part of literature’s profligate generosity.
PAT CONROY

Book Both Competition Emptiness End Feel Few Thing Great Indwelling Linger Longer
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
Red Hook Road made me happy, and happy to be alive. It took me out of my home on the coast of South Carolina, placed me in the town along Red hook Road, and changed me the way good books always do.
PAT CONROY

Alive Happy Hook Made Red Road

I don’t know why it is that I have always been happier thinking of somewhere I have been or wanted to go, than where I am at the time. I find it difficult to be happy in the present.

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I don’t know why it is that I have always been happier thinking of somewhere I have been or wanted to go, than where I am at the time. I find it difficult to be happy in the present.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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