I’d be a conservative if I’d never met any. They’re selfish, mean-spirited, egocentric, reactionary, and boring.
PAT CONROYI’d be a conservative if I’d never met any. They’re selfish, mean-spirited, egocentric, reactionary, and boring.
PAT CONROYAmerican men are allotted just as many tears as American women. But because we are forbidden to shed them.
PAT CONROYThere is no teacher more discriminating or transforming than loss.
PAT CONROYMy soul found ease and rest in the companionship of books.
PAT CONROYTeach them the quiet words of kindness, to live beyond themselves.
PAT CONROYMusic could ache and hurt, that beautiful music was a place a suffering man could hide.
PAT CONROYOnce 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 CONROYWe, men, die because our faces were not watered enough.
PAT CONROYThe University of South Carolina has always played a role in my life and the intellectual life of South Carolina.
PAT CONROYA family is one of nature’s solubles; it dissolves in time like salt in rainwater.
PAT CONROYThere are no ideas in the South, just barbecue.
PAT CONROYSouth Carolina is not a state; it is a cult.
PAT CONROYA library could show you everything if you knew where to look.
PAT CONROYThe most powerful words in English are, ‘Tell me a story.’
PAT CONROYWilliam 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 CONROYPut 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