black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

The safe places could only be visited; they could only grant a momentary intuition of sanctuary. The moment always came when we had to return to our real life to face the wounds and grief indigenous to our homr by the river.
PAT CONROY

Could Grant Intuition Momentary Only Place Safe Sanctuary Vist
Laughter is the only strategy that has ever worked at all for me when my world is falling apart.
PAT CONROY

All Apart Fall Laughter Strategy Work World
My soul grazes like a lamb on the beauty of an indrawn tide.
PAT CONROY

Beauty Graze Indrawn Lamb Source Tide
Like everything else, love’s not worth much without some action to back it up.
PAT CONROY

Action Back Else Everything Life Love Some Up Worth
Charleston has a landscape that encourages intimacy and partisanship.
PAT CONROY

Encourage Landscape Partisanship People Person
Each of us would remember that all during our lives. It was the purest moment of freedom and headlong exhilaration that I had ever felt. A wordless covenant was set, and I would go back in my imagination, and return to where happiness seemed so easy to touch.
PAT CONROY

During Easy Exhilaration Freedom Happiness Imagination Moment Remember Seem Wordless
I’ve always found paranoia to be a perfectly defensible position.
PAT CONROY

Always Defensible Found Paranoia Perfectly Position
There’s no word in the language I revere more than ‘teacher.’ My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher, and it always has. I’ve honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming a teacher.
PAT CONROY

Always Heart Language More No Refer Reverse Sing Teacher Word
Each divorce is the death of a small civilization.
PAT CONROY

Civilization Death Each Divorce Smal
A story is a living thing, it moves and shifts.
PAT CONROY

Live Movem Shift Story Thing
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
Evil would always come to me disguised in systems and dignified by law.
PAT CONROY

Always Come Dignified Disguise Evil Law System
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
The most powerful words in English are ‘Tell me a story,’ words that are intimately related to the complexity of history, the origins of language, the continuity of the species, the taproot of our humanity, our singularity, and art itself.
PAT CONROY

Complexity English History Intimately Most Origin Powerful Relate Story Tell Word
Good coaching is good teaching and nothing else.
PAT CONROY

Coach Else Good Nothing Teach
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
Honor is the presence of God in man.
PAT CONROY

God Honor Man Presence
Good writing is the hardest form of thinking.
PAT CONROY

Good Hardest Think Write
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
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

Country Courage First Necessary People Person Revolutionary Step Themselves
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
Man wonders but God decides When to kill the Prince of Tides.
PAT CONROY

Decide God Kill Man Prince Tide Wonder
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

Bone Literature Me Mother Once Southern Summed Told Word
A recipe is a story that ends with a good meal.
PAT CONROY

End Good Meal Recipe Story
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

Always Am Been Go Happier Have Know Somewhere Want Where
Men are prisoners of their genitalia and women are the keepers of the keys to paradise.
PAT CONROY

Genitalia Keeper Key Men Paradise Prisoner Women
Silence (can) be the most eloquent form of lying.
PAT CONROY

Eloquent Lie Most Silence

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

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

More Pat Conroy Quotes