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I had come to a place where I was meant to be. I don’t mean anything so prosaic as a sense of coming home. This was different, very different. It was like arriving at a place much safer than home.

Pat Conroy

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
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
My soul found ease and rest in the companionship of books.
PAT CONROY

Book Companionship Ease Found Rest Soul
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
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
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
From the very beginning, I wrote to explain my own life to myself, and I invited any readers who chose to make the journey with me to join me on the high wire.
PAT CONROY

Beginning Chose Explain From Invite Journey Life Make Myself Own Reader Wrote
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
I’d be a conservative if I’d never met any. They’re selfish, mean-spirited, egocentric, reactionary, and boring.
PAT CONROY

Any Bore Conservative Egocentric Mean never Reactionary Selfish Spirited
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
There are no ideas in the South, just barbecue.
PAT CONROY

Barbecue Idea Just No South
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
My soul grazes like a lamb on the beauty of an indrawn tide.
PAT CONROY

Beauty Graze Indrawn Lamb Source Tide
When mom and dad went to war the only prisoners they took were the children
PAT CONROY

Children Dad Mom Only Prisoners Took Went When
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
Man wonders but God decides When to kill the Prince of Tides.
PAT CONROY

Decide God Kill Man Prince Tide Wonder

I had come to a place where I was meant to be. I don’t mean anything so prosaic as a sense of coming home. This was different, very different. It was like arriving at a place much safer than home.

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I had come to a place where I was meant to be. I don’t mean anything so prosaic as a sense of coming home. This was different, very different. It was like arriving at a place much safer than home.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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