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The most powerful words in English are, ‘Tell me a story.’

Pat Conroy

Why do they not teach you that time is a finger snap and an eye blink, and that you should not allow a moment to pass you by without taking joyous, ecstatic note of it, not wasting a single moment of its swift, breakneck circuit?
PAT CONROY

Allow Blink Eye Finger Moment Pass Should Snap Teach Time
The pursuit of greatness means that laziness has no place in your life.
PAT CONROY

Greatness Laziness Life Mean Place Pursuit
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
I can’t pass a bookstore without slipping inside, looking for the next book that will burn my hand when I touch its jacket, or hand me over a promissory note of such immense power that it contains the formula that will change everything about me.
PAT CONROY

Book Bookstore Burn Hand Inside Jacket Lock Next Pass Touch When Without
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
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
Except for memory, time would have no meaning at all.
PAT CONROY

All Except Meaning Memory No Time
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
I was born into the century in which novels lost their stories, poems their rhymes, paintings their form, and music its beauty, but that does not mean I had to like that trend or go along with it. I fight against these movements with every book I write.
PAT CONROY

Along Beauty Book Born Movement Music Painting Poem Rhyme Sory Write
Urge them toward excellence, drive them toward gentleness, pull them deep into yourself, pull them upward toward manhood, but softly like an angel arranging clouds. Let your spirit move through them softly.
PAT CONROY

Deep Excellence Manhood Men Softly Spirit Toward Urge
And when women talk about being women, they can never quite get away from the recurrent theme of blaming men.
PAT CONROY

Being Blame Get Men Quite Recurrent Talk Theme Way When Women
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
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
Charleston has a landscape that encourages intimacy and partisanship.
PAT CONROY

Encourage Landscape Partisanship People Person
The safe places could only be visited; they could only grant a momentary intuition of sanctuary. The moment always came when we had to return to our real life to face the wounds and grief indigenous to our homr by the river.
PAT CONROY

Could Grant Intuition Momentary Only Place Safe Sanctuary Vist
A story is a living thing, it moves and shifts.
PAT CONROY

Live Movem Shift Story Thing
I could bear the memory, but I could not bear the music that made the memory such a killing thing.
PAT CONROY

Bear Could Could Music Kill Made Memory Such Thing
I’ve never had anyone’s approval, so I’ve learned to live without it.
PAT CONROY

Anyone Approve Learn Live never Without
William Ferris has long reigned as the unimpeachable source of the entire southern experience. His work on southern folklore and the composition of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture have made him both legendary and necessary. His book,
PAT CONROY

Country Entire Experience Long People Person Resigned Source Southern Unimpeachable
I have heard it said that an inoculation to the sights and smells of the Carolina lowcountry is an almost irreversible antidote to the charms of other landscapes, other alien geographies.
PAT CONROY

Alien Charm Geographic Heard Inoculation Landscape Sight Smell
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
From the very beginning, I wrote to explain my own life to myself, and I invited any readers who chose to make the journey with me to join me on the high wire.
PAT CONROY

Beginning Chose Explain From Invite Journey Life Make Myself Own Reader Wrote
I’ve always found paranoia to be a perfectly defensible position.
PAT CONROY

Always Defensible Found Paranoia Perfectly Position
My attraction to story is a ceaseless current that runs through the center of me. My inexhaustible ardor for reading seems connected to my hunger for storylines that show up in both books and in the great tumbling chaos of life.
PAT CONROY

Attraction Ceaseless Center Current Run Story
Baseball fans love numbers. They love to swirl them around their mouths like Bordeaux wine.
PAT CONROY

Around Baseball Bordeaux Fan Love Mouth Number Swirl Wine
Music could ache and hurt, that beautiful music was a place a suffering man could hide.
PAT CONROY

Ache Beautiful Hide Hurt Man Music Place Suffer

The most powerful words in English are, ‘Tell me a story.’

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The most powerful words in English are, ‘Tell me a story.’

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Popular Authors

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