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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

Evil would always come to me disguised in systems and dignified by law.
PAT CONROY

Always Come Dignified Disguise Evil Law System
Good writing is the hardest form of thinking. It involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear.
PAT CONROY

Agony Difficult Force Form Good Hardest Involves Lucid Profoundly Think Writing
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
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
Political correctness has a stranglehold on academia, on feminism, and on the media. It is a form of both madness and maggotry, and has already silenced the voices of writers like James Dicky across the land.
PAT CONROY

Across Already Correctness Land Madness Maggotry Medis Political Stranglehold
I discovered that He had simply given me a different voice to praise the inexhaustible beauty of the made world.
PAT CONROY

Beauty Different Discover Given Inexhaustible Made Praise Voice Word
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
My soul grazes like a lamb on the beauty of an indrawn tide.
PAT CONROY

Beauty Graze Indrawn Lamb Source Tide
There is such a thing as too much beauty in a woman and it is often a burden as crippling as homeliness and far more dangerous. It takes much luck and integrity to survive the gift of perfect beauty, and its impermanence is its most cunning betrayal.
PAT CONROY

Beauty Burden Crippling Dangerous More Much Often Such Thing Too Woman
We, men, die because our faces were not watered enough.
PAT CONROY

Die Enough Facemweer Men Water
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
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
I’ve never had anyone’s approval, so I’ve learned to live without it.
PAT CONROY

Anyone Approve Learn Live never Without
The University of South Carolina has always played a role in my life and the intellectual life of South Carolina.
PAT CONROY

Always Country Intellectual Life Play Role South University
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
Man wonders but God decides When to kill the Prince of Tides.
PAT CONROY

Decide God Kill Man Prince Tide Wonder

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,

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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,

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