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" Writing has never been that simple for me. "
Pat Conroy
Simple
Writing
Been
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" Without music, life is a journey through a desert. "
Pat Conroy
Life
Desert
Music
" 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. "
Pat Conroy
She
Remember
Me
" My father wouldn't let me take typing in childhood. "
Pat Conroy
Childhood
Father
Take
" My father's violence is the central fact of my art and my life. "
Pat Conroy
Life
Father
My Life
" When I was 5 years old, my mother read me 'Gone With The Wind' at night, before I went to bed. I remember her reading almost all year. "
Pat Conroy
Night
Reading
Wind
" I think I learned about the relationship between books and life from Margaret Mitchell. "
Pat Conroy
About
Relationship
Life
" 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. "
Pat Conroy
Childhood
Great
Now
" I loved my parents... but that can never change the fact that my father's violence ruined my childhood. "
Pat Conroy
Fact
Parents
Father
" When my novel 'Beach Music' came out in 1995, I had included a couple of recipes in the book and had tried to impart some of my love of Roman cuisine and the restaurants of Rome. "
Pat Conroy
Tried
Rome
Music
" I don't believe in happy families. "
Pat Conroy
Happy
Believe
Families
" I think that my mother, Frances Dorothy Peck, modeled her whole life on that of Scarlett O'Hara. "
Pat Conroy
Her
Life
Mother
" 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.' "
Pat Conroy
Style
Perfection
Great
" 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.' "
Pat Conroy
Know
Parents
Me
" Fear is the major cargo that American writers must stow away when the writing life calls them into carefully chosen ranks. "
Pat Conroy
Away
American
Writing
" A novel is a great act of passion and intellect, carpentry and largess. From the very beginning, I wrote to explain my own life to myself, and I invited readers who chose to make the journey with me to join me on the high wire. "
Pat Conroy
Journey
Life
Great
" I'm not the lovable, wonderful, tenderhearted grandfather that you read about in books. I'm grouchy and curmudgeonly, and I have a lot of rules. "
Pat Conroy
Grandfather
You
Rules
" I wrote a piece for the school literary magazine that now makes me think: 'My God in Heaven, this is just the worst drivel.' "
Pat Conroy
Now
School
Think
" There are other writers who try for subtle and minimalists effects, but I don't travel in that tribe. "
Pat Conroy
Try
Travel
Who
" A family is too frail a vessel to contain the risks of all the warring impulses expressed when such a group meets on common ground. "
Pat Conroy
Too
Group
Family
" I love books about treks and journeys into the unknown. "
Pat Conroy
Unknown
About
I Love
" I'm fascinated by the people I grew up with and the mistakes I made - and God, I have screwed up. I like writing about where it all went off course. "
Pat Conroy
Screwed
Writing
Mistakes
" I only hope to do well enough before I die to have a house as big as my rich Uncle Ed and Aunt Carole. "
Pat Conroy
Uncle
Die
House
" I've never cackled with laughter at a single line I've ever written. None of it has given me pleasure. "
Pat Conroy
Me
Pleasure
Never
" I still write in long hand. I type like a chimpanzee. "
Pat Conroy
Like
Hand
Long
" I never read my reviews... not even the good ones. Barbra Streisand once told me, if just one person in the audience doesn't applaud, it bothers her. I'm the same way. I'd be devastated to read that someone didn't like my work. "
Pat Conroy
Work
Audience
Good
" There's always a version of me who is the narrator. And I make myself look better than other people. "
Pat Conroy
Better
Always
People
" Writing is more about imagination than anything else. I fell in love with words. I fell in love with storytelling. "
Pat Conroy
Imagination
More
Writing
" I mark the reading of 'Look Homeward, Angel' as one of the pivotal events of my life. It starts off with the single greatest, knock-your-socks-off first page I have ever come across in my careful reading of world literature. "
Pat Conroy
My Life
Angel
World
" To Southerners like my mother, 'Gone With the Wind' was not just a book; it was an answer, a clenched fist raised to the North, an anthem of defiance. "
Pat Conroy
Book
Gone
Answer
" I still get weepy when I see a father being nice to his child. It so affects me. "
Pat Conroy
Child
Being Nice
See