Pat Conroy

“I was born into the century in which novels lost their stories, poems their rhymes, paintings their form, and music its beauty,…

— Pat Conroy

Mama always taught her children that words were pretty, but anyone can talk. She said, pay attention to that man or woman…

— Pat Conroy

Because she deserved my tears if anyone on earth ever did. I could feel the tears within me, undiscovered, and untouched in…

— Pat Conroy

She was one of those Southerners who knew from an early age that the South could never be more for them than…

— Pat Conroy

“That's what a good book does-it puts readers on their knees. It makes you want to believe in a world you just…

— Pat Conroy

Red Hook Road made me happy, and happy to be alive. It took me out of my home on the coast of…

— Pat Conroy

I meet kids now who become novelists, poets, write for the theater and movies, who were simply inspired by what they saw…

— Pat Conroy

“I’m an American male, Lowenstein,” I said, smiling. “It’s not my job to be open.” “What exactly is the American male’s job?”…

— Pat Conroy

“An author must gorge himself on ten thousand images to select the magical one that can define a piece of the world…

— Pat Conroy

Rape is a crime against sleep and memory; it's afterimage imprints itself like an irreversible negative from the camera obscura of dreams.

— Pat Conroy

“In the lowcountry, the smell of the marshlands is offensive to visitors, but is the fragrant essence of the planet to the…

— Pat Conroy

“At the top the bridge with the stars shining above the harbor, I look to the north and wish again that there…

— Pat Conroy

“I could rent Caesar out at birthday parties. Halloween parties. I could take pictures of Caesar eating a piece of birthday cake.…

— Pat Conroy

Even today, I hunt for the fabulous books that will change me utterly. I find myself happiest in the middle of a…

— Pat Conroy

It did not look like the work of God, but it might have represented the handicraft of a God with a joyous…

— Pat Conroy

We old athletes carry the disfigurements and markings of contests remembered only by us and no one else. Nothing is more lost…

— Pat Conroy

“If I catch a fish before the sun rises, I have connected myself again to the deep hum of the planet. If…

— Pat Conroy

“It was a time in my life when many things bored me deeply and I hungered for beauty and those realms of…

— Pat Conroy

“The writing of novels is one of the few ways I have found to approach the altar of God and Creation itself.…

— Pat Conroy

“Because we're human. Like everyone else. And the older we get, the more human we get. The more human we get, the…

— Pat Conroy

“Together they spent their whole lives waiting for their luck to change, as though luck were some fabulous tide that would one…

— Pat Conroy

A novel is a great act of passion and intellect, carpentry and largess. From the very beginning, I wrote to explain my…

— Pat Conroy

From the very beginning, I wrote to explain my own life to myself, and I invited any readers who chose to make…

— Pat Conroy

“The teacher must always be on the attack, looking for new ideas, changing worn-out tactics, and never, ever falling into patterns that…

— Pat Conroy

“Conroy writes that, while part of him was following the basketball game from the bench, "the other part, an embassy of a…

— Pat Conroy

She thought she brought a gift of compassion for those exhausted souls who had not received a chest portion from the people…

— Pat Conroy

“I lit a cigarette and began puffing on it as I drank one quick beer after another. I was neither a drinker…

— Pat Conroy

“Scarlett (O'Hara) taught that one could be hungry and despairing, but not broken and not without resources, spiritual in nature, that precluded…

— Pat Conroy

“A portion of guilt is standard issue for southern boys; our whole lives are convoluted, egregious apologies to our mothers because our…

— Pat Conroy

She had so mastered the strategies of camouflage that her own history had seemed a series of well-placed mirrors that kept her…

— Pat Conroy

When my novel 'Beach Music' came out in 1995, I had included a couple of recipes in the book and had tried…

— Pat Conroy

“In our modern age, there are writers who have heaped scorn on the very idea of the primacy of story. I'd rather…

— Pat Conroy

“Rape is a crime against sleep and memory; it's after image imprints itself like an irreversible negative from the camera obscure of…

— Pat Conroy

I do not have any other way of saying it. I think it happens but once and only to the very young…

— Pat Conroy

“And I was glad she had the camera as a fence to protect herself, an excuse to be invisible. Cameras are a…

— Pat Conroy

“My friends had always come from outside the mainstream. I had always been popular with the fifth column of my peers, those…

— Pat Conroy

Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends. That…

— Pat Conroy

“I became one of those anonymous Americans who tries to keep his mind sharp and inquisitive while performing all the humiliating rituals…

— Pat Conroy

“The American male is a quivering mass of insecurities. If a woman makes the mistake of loving him, he will make her…

— Pat Conroy

I can't pass a bookstore without slipping inside, looking for the next book that will burn my hand when I touch its…

— Pat Conroy