Quotes from Pat Conroy

A story untold could be the one that kills you

Football is a game where you can't feel lonely.

Our grandfather, in dreamless sleep beneath us, spoke to us from the singing hive of memory.

Of the Yamacraw children I can say little. I don't think I changed the quality of their lives significantly or altered the inexorable fact that they were imprisoned by the very circumstance of their birth.

But you finally got to be a tiger, Caesar.

In the lowcountry, the smell of the marshlands is offensive to visitors, but is the fragrant essence of the planet to the native born.

The language of grief is an impoverished one in the South. It is admired only if it's done in silence.

an untranslatable potpourri of grunts and monosyllables, punctuated only by Prophet's beautifully effusive smiles.

I ordered a Manhattan, honoring the island on which I sat, and only when I tasted the ghastly concoction did I remember why I had never developed a fondness for that particular cocktail.

could not hold them accountable or indict them for crimes they could not help. They, too, had a history—one that I remembered with both tenderness and pain, one that made me forgive their transgressions against their own children. In families there are no crimes beyond forgiveness.

If I turn on the television because I cannot stand an evening alone with myself or my family, I am admitting my citizenship with the living dead.

surface my wife's most vicious

Bernie emerged from a cluster of giggling girls when he saw me, raised his cigar in salute, then ran over to my car. "You missed it, boy. You missed the greatest welcome since Caesar returned to Rome.

I was suddenly exhausted, depleted down to the very center of the soul, and I rested my head on the back of the chair, closing my eyes and trying to clear my mind.

Few things rivet me like the beauty of moving water.

Yamacraw is beautiful because man has not yet had time to destroy this beauty.

The imprint of Dachau branded me indelibly and caused me to suffer the miscarriage of my hopeful philosophy. If man was good, then Dachau could never have happened. Simple as that.

Sweet little Jesus, I thought, as I weaved between the desks, these kids don't know crap.

By not being able to tell me anything about themselves, they were telling me everything.

Though I will always be a visitor to Charleston, I will always remain one with a passionate belief that it is the most beautiful city in America and that to walk the old section of the city at night is to step into the bloodstream of a history extravagantly lived by a people born to a fierce and unshakable advocacy of their past.

The language of grief is an impoverished one in the South. Sorrow is admired only if it's done in silence.

People that like to read are always a little fucked up.

I learned that politicians are not supposed to help people. They simply listen to people, nod their heads painfully, commiserate at proper intervals, promise to do all they can, and then do nothing.

Here, open wide and let it slide," he said, tilting a half-shell into Ben's mouth. The oyster hit Ben's mouth. It felt warm, salty, and had the consistency of loose phlegm. For a moment, Ben thought he was going to vomit. Somehow, he got the animal down his throat.