Pat Conroy

"The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life."

"There is no teacher more discriminating or transforming than loss."

"My passion for eating springs from a childhood not deprived of food but deprived of good food."

"Home is a damaged word, bruisable as fruit, in the cruel glossaries of the language I choose to describe the long, fearful march of my childhood."

"Stories have always hunted me down, jumped out at me from the shadows, stalked me and sought me out, grabbed me by the shirtsleeves, and demanded my full attention. I’ve led a life chock-full of stories, and I know now that you have to be shifty and vigilant and ready to receive their incoming fire."

"Here is what The Boo loved more than The Citadel—nothing, nothing on this Earth. The sun rose on Lesesne Gate and it set on the marshes of the Ashley River and its main job was to keep the parade grounds green. He once told me that a cadet was nothing but a bum, like you, Conroy. But a Corps of Cadets was the most beautiful thing in the world. In World War II, he led an artillery unit during the Battle of the Bulge and he once told me, "The Germans hated to see me and my boys catch em in the open." It is my own personal belief that The Boo's own voice was more frightening to the Germans than the artillery fire he was directing toward them."

"You have never been blessed out or bawled out or chewed out unless you got it from The Boo in his prime. Did I say he was five times louder than God? I'm sorry if that sounds sacrilegious and it certainly is not true. The Boo was at least ten times louder than God and I was scared of him my entire cadet career."

"There was only one cadet I ever really hated. Just one name I can think of," The Boo said. "That'll make an interesting story for the book, Colonel. Who is the jerk?" I asked. "It was you, Conroy. Just you. There was something about you that I hated when you first walked into fourth battalion, you worthless bum."

"When I was writing The Lords of Discipline, I went to The Boo for help. "What makes The Citadel different from all other schools? What makes it different, special and unique? Why do I think it is the best college in the world when I hated it when I was here, Boo? Help me with this." The Boo held up his hand and said, "It's the ring, Bubba. Always remember that. The ring, the ring, the ring." I thought about it for a moment then wrote the words, "I wear the ring." "How about this for a first line?" "Perfect, Bubba, just perfect.""

"The tide was a poem that only time could create, and I watched it stream and brim and makes its steady dash homeward, to the ocean."

"Humanity is best described as inhumanity."

"You must appreciate beauty for it to endure [...]"

"I take account of my life and find that I have lived a lot and learned very little."

"A library could show you everything if you knew where to look."

"Writing is the only way I have to explain my own life to myself."

"Books are living things and their task lies in their vows of silence. You touch them as they quiver with a divine pleasure. You read them and they fall asleep to happy dreams for the next ten years. If you do them the favor of understanding them, of taking in their portions of grief and wisdom, then they settle down in contented residence in your heart."

"I can't pass a bookstore without slipping inside, looking for the next book that will burn my hand when I touch its jacket, or hand me over a promissory note of such immense power that it contains the formula that will change everything about me."

"Here is all I ask of a book—give me everything. Everything, and don't leave out a single word."

"Ireland lived deeply inside of me, a fierce and intransigent resident in my bloodstream."

"Not a single family finds itself exempt from that one haunted casualty who suffered irreparable damage in the crucible they entered at birth."

"I envy the tireless intimacy of women's friendship, its lastingness, and its unbendable strength."

"Teaching remains a heroic act to me, and teachers live a necessary and all-important life. We are killing their spirit with unnecessary pressure and expectation that seem forced and destructive to me. Long ago I was one of them. I still regret I was forced to leave them. My entire body of work is because of men and women like them."

"Throughout my career I've lived in constant fear that I wouldn’t be good enough, that I'd have nothing to say, that I’d be laughed at, humiliated—and I’m old enough to know that fear will follow me to the very last word I'll ever write. 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."

"Among the worst things about growing old is the loss of those irreplaceable friends who added richness and depth to your life."

"I have yet to meet an English teacher who assigned a book to damage a kid."

"I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language."

"Everything that was wrong with me that night was my fault. I had tantalized the fates by embracing that life-defying trifecta: overeating, overdrinking, and lack of exercise. I'm trying to develop the appetite of a parakeet, drink nothing stronger than Clamato juice, and try to do aerobics in a Fripp Island pool as often as I can. When I enter the pool I look as though I'm trying out for a part as Moby Dick. It's not a pretty sight."

"The tour for South of Broad began at my house at Fripp this past week. The tour is abbreviated because of my health, which I regret. I always liked meeting and talking to you guys on the road, but that was a time before airline travel became an American nightmare. I'll go by car on most of the signings, and we'll see how it goes. I'm alone in a room for most of my life, writing, and I love when readers bring me news of the outside world. That part of my life might be coming to an end, and nothing fills me with more regret. To have attracted readers is the most magical part of my writing life. I was not expecting you to show up when I wrote my first books. It took me by surprise. It filled me with gratitude. It still does."

"I've always taken a childish joy in showing off Charleston to strangers in the city. Charleston never lets me down, but this time my tour of the city had an unusual twist. I showed them Charleston through the eyes of the narrator of South of Broad, Leo King. I followed Leo's paper route through the old part of the city, showed them the high points and low points of Leo's career as a child. I showed them the distinguished line of mansions that grace the jacket of the book. To me it composes the prettiest formation of houses in the book. We toured The Citadel and I pointed out the places I had lived when I was pretending to be a cadet, I owe The Citadel more than I can express in words. That day, The Citadel was beautiful in sunlight, and Charleston strutted in the beauty of all its strange elixirs."

"You know how my story as a teacher ended. The white boys rose up and got rid of this hotheaded white boy. I never taught again. The white boys won, or so they thought. That superintendent and that school board drove me out of a job and eventually out of Beaufort. But to you, the people of Penn Center, whose ancestors survived the grueling Middle Passage and the heat of cotton fields and the whips of overseers - rejoice with me. I'm living proof that Penn Center can change a white boy's life. You changed me utterly and I'm forever grateful to you. Yes, I was fired, humiliated, and run out of town because I believed what Martin Luther King believed. Yes, they got me good, Penn Center, but on this joyous night, let me brag to you at last: Didn't I get those sorry sons of bitches back? Thank you very much."

"About the war between me and technology: it appears that technology is rolling over me like a blitzkrieg. I'm a victim of all its barbarisms. I still can't type, which makes my emails seem composed by a highlands baboon. Once or twice a week, I check my e-mail, whether I need to or not. I understand that most human beings check theirs with more frequency. Twitter is an unknown factor in my life and I've never seen Facebook, even though I'm told I have a presence on both of these entities. People give me looks of pity and ask me why I want to wallow in my disconnection from a very connected world. It is simple. The world seems way too connected for me now. It seems to be ruining the lives of teenagers and bringing out the bestial cruelty in those who can hide their vileness under the mask of some idiotic pseudonym. I like to sit alone and think about things. Solitude is as precious as coin silver and it takes labor to attain it. I can be frivolous without Twitter and Facebook. I turned sixty-five this year and I take old age seriously. There's work to be done."

"I often tell people The Boo is "the worst book ever written by an American," and I wish I'd written it better."

"I went looking for the presentation copy of The Boo he had given me in 1970. I had never opened it that I could remember, and I wanted to see if he had signed it. When I opened it, I found these eight words written to me forty-one years ago: "To the lamb who made me, The Boo." These words made my whole writing career worthwhile."

"How could a man I had dreaded as my commandant and who tried twice to get me kicked out of college become the subject of the first book I would write? How could the young kid I was then become one of the closest friends The Boo would ever make? Who could have predicted that The Boo would be hired as the mighty advisor for the filming of The Lords of Discipline in England? After his long humiliation and exile by The Citadel, who would have predicted that he and I would both be honored by a full-dress parade and honorary degrees as we stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the same parade ground we had marched on as boys? Who could have foreseen the day I would deliver his eulogy at the Summerall Chapel, or that I would give a speech on the night they named the dining room in the new Alumni Hall after him? Not me. Not once. Not ever."

"He left the same message every few months, the same message, word for word. "Bragg? This is Conroy. It is now obvious that it is up to me to keep this dying friendship alive. You do not write. You do not call. But I am willing to carry this burden by all by myself. It is a tragedy. Ours could have been a father-son relationship, but you rejected that. And now it is all up to me, to keep this dying [bleep, bleep, bleepity, bleeping] friendship from fading away..." And then there would be a second or two of silence, before: "I love you, son." That part always sounded real. I would always call back, immediately, but the voice mail just told me it was full, always full. I would learn, over decades, that it was full because I was not the only writer or friend he had adopted, or even the only one he left that same message of mock disappointment and feigned regret. But now and then I would actually be there when he called, and we would talk an hour or two about writers and language and why I should love my mother, and he would always, always tell me he had read my latest book, and how he was proud of me. Then he would tell me how he did not mind that I had neglected our friendship and that his broad shoulders could carry the weight of my indifference, and the phone would go dead. My God, I will miss that."

"As he left, I knew I was now only the second most popular writer in our home; The Water is Wide is my mother's favorite book. Because of him, we see the good in Santini, and know that any man, no matter how wounded or damaged, can be a prince of tides. We will miss the words he still had to write. We will miss a damn sight more than that."

"To the lamb that made me. The Boo."

"Pat's book signings told me everything I ever needed to know about him. He refused to take even the quickest of breaks. The staff and I would plead with him, but to no avail. I'd insist the staff have food for him, which they probably loved me for, since they'd end up eating it. He certainly didn't. He would sign until the last person left, even if it was well after midnight. He greeted everyone as though he were running for mayor. He was known for shaking off the efforts of his publicist to hurry the line along, or to stop anyone from bringing more than one book to be signed. "Bring all you have!" Pat would tell his readers jovially, much to the chagrin of the poor publisher's representatives who had been sent to make sure everything went smoothly. I'd see them glare daggers at him at first, but learned quickly to quell my alarm. In no time, I knew, the silver-tongued devil would have them eating out of his hand. And without fail, he always did. Despite the long, exhausting hours and doubtless unpaid overtime Pat's signings cost the staff, it was a sheer pleasure to be with him when he arrived at a bookstore. He was always greeted like visiting royalty, and knew each of the staff by name. He asked after their families, and if they'd ever gotten around to writing the book they had told him about, the last time he was in. Never mind that it had been many years since his last signing there. He remembered everyone."

"But more than anything else, Pat's signings were lovefests between him and his readers, and they flocked to him. He made sure their long wait was worth it. Once they got to his table, he'd hold out his hand ans say, "Hi, I'm Pat Conroy. Tell me who you are." In no time, he had pried their stories from them, just as he'd done with me the night we met. Devoted readers would burst into tears upon meeting him, then end up blurting out their innermost secrets, not caring how long they held up the line. It was another thing I observed with amusement, the disgruntled moans and groans of those in line when someone was taking up what appeared to be way too much of Mr. Conroy's time. What was wrong with the staff, that they allowed such a thing to happen? Didn't that fancy New York publicist know he/she was supposed to be herding the crowd along and not just standing there mesmerized? Couldn't someone do something? They would fume and pout until their time came, and then- like magic - it would all disappear. I would watch them melt under Pat's twinkly-eyed gaze, his disarming smile and outstretched hand. Next thing you knew, they too would be leaning over the table, telling him in a low breathless voice a story they'd never, ever told anyone before. No wonder he never ran out of material."

"Tragically, Pat Conroy ran out of time before he ran out of material, and it breaks my heart to think of the stories he did not live to tell. He and I talked often of Time's winged chariot drawing new, and how swiftly it all goes by. Although Pat feared little, one fear haunted him: that he'd run out of time before he could finish the books he still had in him. It was almost a premonition. He was a man who loved the written word beyond all measure, and who believed that each of us has at least one great story to tell. He would grab hold of someone- stranger or friend, it didn't matter- and he wouldn't let go until he pried that story out. Then his eyes would blaze that dazzling Irish blue and a smile would transform him. If the story was good enough to capture his imagination, he couldn't wait to write it down. Whether it was about a white porpoise or a caged tiger or a lost ancestor who sewed coins into the hem of a skirt to buy her freedom, his pen would bring it to life, make it as real to the rest of us as it was to him on hearing it. He would take your story and make it large and glorious and unforgettable. He would make it immortal."

"Donald Patrick Conroy, born on October 26, 1945, was the best storyteller of our time - very possibly any time. We will never forget Donald Patrick Conroy. He came to live in South Carolina on orders of the United States Marine Corps. In 1961, his father, Colonel Donald Conroy, a Marine aviator who went by the nickname of the Great Santini- perhaps you've heard of him- received orders to report to the air station in Beaufort, South Carolina. Pat was sixteen years old and received this news with dread. He had been to ten schools in eleven years and Beaufort High School would become his third high school."

"Pat Conroy may have come to live among us involuntarily, but he stayed among us by choice and enriched us all for more than fifty years. Many of us saw ourselves reflected in his published words. Some of us he entertained grandly. Others of us he outraged greatly. To all of us, he gave a rare gift. He came to us from afar, like Faulkner and like Wolfe. But I respectfully suggest, in ways more real and more loving than either of them, that he gave to us the opportunity, in the phrase of Burns, "to see ourselves as others see us." For this alone, we should be forever grateful to Pat Conroy, our very own prince of tides. "Goodnight, sweet prince. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." Hamlet, Act V, Scene 2."