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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

South Carolina is not a state; it is a cult.
PAT CONROY

Cult South State
Here is all I ask of a book- give me everything. Everything, and don’t leave out a single word.
PAT CONROY

All Ask Book Everything Give Here Leave Single Word
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
Charleston has a landscape that encourages intimacy and partisanship.
PAT CONROY

Encourage Landscape Partisanship People Person
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
I lived with the terrible knowledge that one day I would be an old man still waiting for my real life to start. Already, I pitied that old man.
PAT CONROY

Day Knowledge Life Live Man Old One Real Start Still Terrible Wait
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
I’ve always found paranoia to be a perfectly defensible position.
PAT CONROY

Always Defensible Found Paranoia Perfectly Position
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
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
You touch them as they quiver with a divine pleasure. You read them and they fall asleep to happy dreams for the next 10 years. If you do them the favor of understanding them, of taking in their portions of grief and wisdom, then they settle down in contented residence in your heart.
PAT CONROY

Asleep Down Dream Grief Happy Kindness Portion Quicker Settle Touch Wisdom Word
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
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
Books are living things and their task lies in their vows of silence.
PAT CONROY

Book Lie Live Silence Tale Thing Vow
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
The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life.
PAT CONROY

Aspect Embrace Fill Great Hope Life Reason Shower Teacher Thousand

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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