Pat Conroy
Pat Conroy
Donald Patrick "Pat" Conroywas a New York Times bestselling American author who wrote several acclaimed novels and memoirs. Two of his novels, The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini, were made into Oscar-nominated films. He is recognized as a leading figure of late-20th century Southern literature...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth26 October 1945
CityAtlanta, GA
CountryUnited States of America
Pat Conroy quotes about
army compassion walks
But no one walks out of his family without reprisals: a family is too disciplined an army to offer compassion to its deserters.
queens moving black
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. 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. Tell me everything that I must know. Hold nothing back.
father childhood parent
I loved my parents... but that can never change the fact that my father's violence ruined my childhood.
beautiful girl sweet
Comely was the town by the curving river that they dismantled in a year's time. Beautiful was Colleton in her last spring as she flung azaleas like a girl throwing rice at a desperate wedding. In dazzling profusion, Colleton ripened in a gauze of sweet gardens and the town ached beneath a canopy of promissory fragrance.
attention dignity demon
But even her demons she invested with inordinate beauty, consecrated them with the dignity of her attention.
father childhood let-me
My father wouldn't let me take typing in childhood.
laughter fall world
Laughter is the only strategy that has ever worked at all for me when my world is falling apart.
imagination love
Writing is more about imagination than anything else. I fell in love with words. I fell in love with storytelling.
article faith inside loved novels
It's an article of faith that the novels I've loved will live inside me forever.
damaging ignore kids parenting screwing somehow understand
I told my kids when they were little, 'Look, kids, your mother and I are screwing you up somehow. We don't understand how, or we wouldn't do it. But we're parents. So somehow we're damaging you, and I want you to know that early. So just ignore me when I go to that part of my parenting.'
affect affects agree great horrendous
The great thing about all my siblings is we all agree we had a horrendous childhood. It's not like it doesn't affect us now; it affects us every day, in everything we do.
bear love needed novel page wrote
I could not bear to think that I wrote a five-hundred page novel just because I needed to love my father.
found great james novel pages praise reminded writer
Let me now praise the American writer James Dickey. In 1970, his novel 'Deliverance' was published. I found it to be 278 pages that approached perfection. Its tightness of construction and assuredness of style reminded me of 'The Great Gatsby.'
delightful marked presence remain taught though
Though Nathalie Dupree did not remember much about my presence in her class, it marked me forever. I remain her enthusiast, her evangelist, her acolyte, and her grateful student. She taught me that cooking and storytelling make the most delightful coconspirators.