Writer Quotes by Pat Conroy

Good writing is the hardest form of thinking.

— Pat Conroy

I still write in long hand. I type like a chimpanzee.

— Pat Conroy

I love books about treks and journeys into the unknown.

— Pat Conroy

Writing has never been that simple for me.

— Pat Conroy

My mother raised me to be a writer.

— Pat Conroy

The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave

— Pat Conroy

My soul found ease and rest in the companionship of books.

— Pat Conroy

Writing is the only way I have to explain my own life to myself.

— Pat Conroy

I think I learned about the relationship between books and life from Margaret Mitchell.

— Pat Conroy

“Read the great books, gentlemen,” Mr. Monte said one day. “Just the great ones. Ignore the others. There’s not enough time.”

— Pat Conroy

“Fear is the major cargo that American writers must stow away when the writing life calls them into its carefully chosen ranks.”

— Pat Conroy

“I selected all my books for the possibility of some flare of candles along the road toward illumination or enchantment”

— Pat Conroy

Reading is the most rewarding form of exile and the most necessary discipline for novelists who burn with the ambition to get…

— Pat Conroy

“She had a grocer's faith in books; they can be handed out like Green Stamps and were redeemable for a variety of…

— Pat Conroy

When I was 5 years old, my mother read me 'Gone With The Wind' at night, before I went to bed. I…

— Pat Conroy

“You get a little moody sometimes but I think that's because you like to read. People that like to read are always…

— Pat Conroy

You do not learn how to write novels in a writing program. You learn how by leading an interesting life. Open yourself…

— Pat Conroy

I've met many, many writers who say they would never write about their family, never write about people they did not totally…

— Pat Conroy

“I had declared in public my desire to be a writer ... I wanted to develop a curiosity that was oceanic and…

— Pat Conroy

“I have built a city from the books I've read. A good book sings a a timeless music that is heard in…

— Pat Conroy

“When you write by hand, you don't have the excessive freedom of a computer. When I write down something, I have to…

— Pat Conroy

“You have to pay for this view (onto which he looks while writing), so our expenses keep us pretty motivated to write.…

— Pat Conroy

“Good writing is the hardest form of thinking. It involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into a lucid form and…

— Pat Conroy

My great fear of being attacked or trivialized by my contemporaries made me concentrate on what I was trying to do as…

— Pat Conroy

When I bought a collection of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, I returned home with a bright enthusiasm to begin the long march into…

— Pat Conroy

“Books are living things and their task lies in their vows of silence. You touch them as they quiver with divine pleasure.…

— Pat Conroy

Do you think that Hemingway knew he was a writer at twenty years old? No, he did not. Or Fitzgerald, or Wolfe.…

— Pat Conroy

Good writing is the hardest form of thinking. It involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing…

— Pat Conroy

A library could show you everything if you knew where to look.

— Pat Conroy

Let me now praise the American writer James Dickey. In 1970, his novel 'Deliverance' was published. I found it to be 278…

— Pat Conroy

“My mother saw in 'Gone With the Wind' the text of liberating herself, ... She took 'Gone With the Wind' as the…

— 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

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

— 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

“A novelist must wrestle with all mysteries and strangeness of life itself, and anyone who dies not wish to accept that grand,…

— Pat Conroy

Good writing ... involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of…

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

— 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

“Good writing is the hardest form of thinking. It involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing…

— Pat Conroy