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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

One can learn anything, anything at all, I thought, if provided by a gifted and passionate teacher.
PAT CONROY

All Anything Can Gifted Learn One Passionate Teacher Thought
We die long before women do, with our hearts exploding or our blood pressure rising or our livers eaten away by alcohol because that lake of grief inside us has no outlet.
PAT CONROY

Alcohol Away Blood Exploit Heart Liver Eaten Outlet Pressure Sie Women
Walking the streets of Charleston in the late afternoons of August was like walking through gauze or inhaling damaged silk.
PAT CONROY

Afternoon August Damage Gauze Inghail Later People Person Silk Street Though Walk
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
Man wonders but God decides When to kill the Prince of Tides.
PAT CONROY

Decide God Kill Man Prince Tide Wonder
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
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’ve always believed that dreams were both the love letters and the hate mail of the subconscious.
PAT CONROY

All Always Believe Both Dream Hate Letter Love Succoncious
Honor is the presence of God in man.
PAT CONROY

God Honor Man Presence
She had so mastered the strategies of camouflage that her own history had seemed a series of well-placed mirrors that kept her hidden from herself.
PAT CONROY

Camouflage Her History Kept Master Mirror Own Pace Seem She Strategy Well
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
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
Books are living things and their task lies in their vows of silence.
PAT CONROY

Book Lie Live Silence Tale Thing Vow
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
Once I had told her that I would rather see a museum bombed than a book underlined, but she dismissed my argument as mere sentimentality. She marked her books so that stunning images and ideas would not be lost to her.
PAT CONROY

Argument Bomb Dismiss Image Museum Once Sentimentality Stunning Told Underline
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

But no one walks out of his family without reprisals: a family is too disciplined an army to offer compassion to its deserters.

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But no one walks out of his family without reprisals: a family is too disciplined an army to offer compassion to its deserters.

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Popular Authors

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