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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

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
Man wonders but God decides When to kill the Prince of Tides.
PAT CONROY

Decide God Kill Man Prince Tide Wonder
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
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
We, men, die because our faces were not watered enough.
PAT CONROY

Die Enough Facemweer Men Water
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
The most powerful words in English are, ‘Tell me a story.’
PAT CONROY

English Most Powerful Story Tell World
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
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
American men are allotted just as many tears as American women. But because we are forbidden to shed them.
PAT CONROY

Allowed Country Firbidenm Shed Just Tear Them Women
My soul grazes like a lamb on the beauty of an indrawn tide.
PAT CONROY

Beauty Graze Indrawn Lamb Source Tide
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

Distort Geometry Human Imperfect Laughter Life Line Story Straight Time
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
Evil would always come to me disguised in systems and dignified by law.
PAT CONROY

Always Come Dignified Disguise Evil Law System
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
Love’s action. It isn’t talk and it never has been.
PAT CONROY

Action Beem Love never Talk

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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