Pat Conroy Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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Oh while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me will ever take command of me.
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It's one thing to live my own life and know that I'm O.K. But there's another thing I want to take on, and that is letting people know that they're O.K., too.
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To write it, it took three months; to conceive it three minutes; to collect the data in it all my life.
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My father was always playing the piano. He played all kinds of music - Gershwin, all kinds of stuff.
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The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy.
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A nice blend of prediction and surprise seem to be at the heart of the best art.
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An anxious unrest, a fierce craving desire for gain has taken possession of the commercial world, and in instances no longer rare the most precious and permanent goods of human life have been madly sacrificed in the interests of momentary enrichment.
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It's one of the great tragedies of our contemporary life in America, that families fall apart. Almost everybody has that in common.
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In some sense, when you take a child soldier out of an armed group, you've taken away the identity he or she has had for years, and you can't assume life is just going to return to normal.
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I've got a clear line between work and real life.
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I had learned of Gertrude Stein's bon mot that medicine opened all doors. This prompted me, in different moods, to view my future life as literary psychiatrist, globe-trotting tropical disease specialist, or academic internist.
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The job at Brooklyn is interesting because Brooklyn reflects what happened to university art departments everywhere. It might be the worst department now, and yet at one point it was the best in the country.
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Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.
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Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
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I was completely unprepared for the public spectacle my private life became, and didn't like it a bit.
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I strongly believe that the art of the novel works best when the writer identifies with whoever he or she is writing about. Novels in the end are based on the human capacity, compassion, and I can show more compassion to my characters if I write in a first person singular.
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I'm always inspired to write, and it's usually my own life experiences that inspire me.
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We feel more and more intensely about the music we make. It's unexpected, and not always what you would think of in Beach House. It's all art in the end. We aren't making records because we have to; it's because it's what we want to express.
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Practice rather than preach. Make of your life an affirmation, defined by your ideals, not the negation of others. Dare to the level of your capability then go beyond to a higher level.
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Art and literature need extreme sociality to a degree that even dolphins don't have. We are the only large mammalian species that has such intense sociality. There are some small mammals that have become eusocial - the mole rats - but that's a different thing. Humans are able to understand one another at very high levels, to cooperate in very large groups. Humans depend on one another in ways that are an absolute precondition to sharing the kinds of information that makes narrative possible.
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You don't have to be a spiritual seeker, you can be a businessman dealing with the revolution in computers. You could be a congressman, or a scientist. No matter what area of life and endeavor we are in we are seeing the signs of new-paradigm thinking.
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What are the aims which are at the same time duties? They are perfecting of ourselves, the happiness of others.
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All I do is listen to music. It's a weird thing. It's like I have so much catching up to do. I've always been over my head. That's just the way I work best, you know. Like when you're studying for school you think, "I can only study when I have to study the night before." That kind of means you're lazy or you're a procrastinator, but for me with music it's a similar thing. It's like I've been over my head for most of my career so to speak.
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My father's violence is the central fact of my art and my life.
