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In Charleston, more than elsewhere, you get the feeling that the twentieth century is a vast, unconscionable mistake.

Pat Conroy

Here’s what I love: when a great writer turns me into a Jew from Chicago, a lesbian out of South Carolina, or a black woman moving into a subway entrance in Harlem. Turn me into something else, writers of the world. Make me Muslim, heretic, hermaphrodite.
PAT CONROY

Black Country Great Jew Lesbian Love Me Move South Turn Woman
Charleston has a landscape that encourages intimacy and partisanship.
PAT CONROY

Encourage Landscape Partisanship People Person
Good writing … 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 Fit Force Good Human Into Kucid Profound Thought Tight Write
But even her demons she invested with inordinate beauty, consecrated them with the dignity of her attention.
PAT CONROY

Attention Beauty Consecrate Democrats Dignity Even Inordinate Invest She
Faulkner didn’t know he was William Faulkner. But they had to take the first step. They had to call themselves writers. That is the first revolutionary act a writer has to make. It takes courage. But it’s necessary
PAT CONROY

Country Courage First Necessary People Person Revolutionary Step Themselves
The pursuit of greatness means that laziness has no place in your life.
PAT CONROY

Greatness Laziness Life Mean Place Pursuit
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
Writing is the only way I have to explain my own life to myself.
PAT CONROY

Explain Have Life Myself Only Write
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
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
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

Bheartbreak Encounter Lose More Prepare Tragedy Will Win World
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
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
My soul grazes like a lamb on the beauty of an indrawn tide.
PAT CONROY

Beauty Graze Indrawn Lamb Source Tide
I’ve never had anyone’s approval, so I’ve learned to live without it.
PAT CONROY

Anyone Approve Learn Live never Without
The most powerful words in English are, ‘Tell me a story.’
PAT CONROY

English Most Powerful Story Tell World

In Charleston, more than elsewhere, you get the feeling that the twentieth century is a vast, unconscionable mistake.

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In Charleston, more than elsewhere, you get the feeling that the twentieth century is a vast, unconscionable mistake.

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Popular Authors

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