black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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
Teach them the quiet words of kindness, to live beyond themselves.
PAT CONROY

Beyond Kindness Live Quiet Teach Them Themselves Word
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
Cameras are a lifesaver for very shy people who have nowhere else to hide. Behind a lens they can disguise the fact that they have nothing to say to strangers.
PAT CONROY

Camera Else Hide Lifesaver Nowhere People Shy Very
My soul found ease and rest in the companionship of books.
PAT CONROY

Book Companionship Ease Found Rest Soul
Evil would always come to me disguised in systems and dignified by law.
PAT CONROY

Always Come Dignified Disguise Evil Law System
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
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
South Carolina is not a state; it is a cult.
PAT CONROY

Cult South State
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
And when women talk about being women, they can never quite get away from the recurrent theme of blaming men.
PAT CONROY

Being Blame Get Men Quite Recurrent Talk Theme Way When Women
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
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
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
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,
PAT CONROY

Aware Entrance Fierce Find Gradual Hard Only Own Pray Prologue
You do not learn how to write novels in a writing program. You learn how by leading an interesting life. Open yourself up to all experience. Let life pour through you the way light pours through leaves.
PAT CONROY

Interesting Learn Life Novel Program Write
The pursuit of greatness means that laziness has no place in your life.
PAT CONROY

Greatness Laziness Life Mean Place Pursuit
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

Effortless Extech Ineffable Limitation Own Result Sentence Something Talent Want
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
There is no teacher more discriminating or transforming than loss.
PAT CONROY

Discriminating Loss More No Teacher Transform
Man wonders but God decides When to kill the Prince of Tides.
PAT CONROY

Decide God Kill Man Prince Tide Wonder
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
The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life. I wanted to follow Mr. Monte around for the rest of my life, learning everything he wished to share of impart, but I didn’t know how to ask.
PAT CONROY

Aspect Embrace Fill Great Hope Life Reason Shower Teacher Thousand
One does not know where love will take you.
PAT CONROY

Know Love One Does Take
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
Silence (can) be the most eloquent form of lying.
PAT CONROY

Eloquent Lie Most Silence
Humanity is best described as inhumanity.
PAT CONROY

Best Describe Humanity Inhumanity

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Pat Conroy Quotes