Quotes from Pat Conroy

The world is divided up into two parts, beer drinkers and wine sippers. In other words, the world is divided into beer drinkers and assholes.

beneficent realization that he was a stranger no longer, that he belonged

my middle-class background had not prepared me for life without scented toilet paper.

But, until that day, I had no idea I was being raised by one of the goddamnest fighter pilots in the history of the Marine Corps. My father and I looked at each other, and I believe we both realized we had just completed our first great day as father and son.

The mirror used to be my best friend. Now it is an assassin.

As for now, I feel the first itch of the novel I'm supposed to write—the grain of sand that irritates the soft tissues of the oyster. The beginning of the world as I don't quite know it. But I trust I'll begin to know it soon.

have an affinity for choosing the tightrope walk across the abyss and have developed a genius for the wrong turn.

Never kill anything that's rare," my father had said. "I'm lucky I didn't kill an elephant," I replied. "You'd have had a mighty square meal if you had," he answered. My

began to savor the thrilling taste that freedom of the road grants to Americans as our birthright. There is nothing like the automobile to make you fall in love with the laden profligate majesty of the American landscape.

As a teacher, I had been a happy man. Now, I was only a diminished one.

All his movements were lethargic, as though he had a layer of silk insulating his central nervous system.

The Atlantic is a cheesy, second-rate ocean," Jordan shouted back, but he was starting to judge the incoming waves again. "It would be okay if it had a hurricane come up the coast every day. But it'll never be the Pacific. Now, you ride, Jack. See that fourth wave forming? Don't be afraid when the bottom drops out of it. That's the board entering the heart of the wave. Just rise to your knees on the first one. Remember, it's all about surfaces.

The board members came in singly and in pairs. They were mostly a lot of calories under gray suits, a lot of talk behind bright ties

terrace above the Red Lion Bookshop observing

let them feel the hurt and sorrow of history.

Because I'm an American, I let her die by degrees, isolated and abandoned by her family. She often asks me to murder her as an act of kindness and charity. I barely have the courage to visit her.

that life was good, but it was hard; we would prepare to meet it head on, but we would enjoy the preparation.

Their heads appeared in clusters above the bridge's cement railing, at intervals, like the beads of a damaged rosary.

The South's got a lot wrong with it. But it's permanent press and it doesn't wash out.

had the heart of a socialist and the soul of a missionary

single insincere phoneme, piss me off? Why can't I ignore her

a family is too disciplined an army to offer compassion to its deserters.

It [my sister's voice] is clear and light, a voice without seasons, like bells over a green city or snowfall on the roots of orchids.

She honored the margins; the wild side made all the difference.