Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Pat Conroy

Quote by Pat Conroy

“The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. 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. Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna Karenina at a ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in "Lonesome Dove" and had nightmares about slavery in "Beloved" and walked the streets of Dublin in "Ulysses" and made up a hundred stories in the Arabian nights and saw my mother killed by a baseball in "A Prayer for Owen Meany." I've been in ten thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous English teachers and soaked up every single thing those magnificent men and women had to give. I cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me when I was a boy and presenting me with the precious gift of the English language.”

Quote by Pat Conroy

Create image

Author

Pat Conroy
Pat Conroy

Pat Conroy was a renowned American author, born on October 26, 1945, and passed away on March 4, 2016. His works are known for their deep character portrayals and vivid Southern backgrounds, with notable titles including 'The Water Is Wide' and 'The Great Santini'. more

You May Also Like

“I write only... To rid myself of what has clung to my heart. I don’t want it, even if it holds my salvation. I seek innocence from every pain it left behind, And to rise above their abandonment when I needed them most. I long to erase them from my memory, as if they never were, To empty this sorrow that has settled in my chest, Then walk away… without turning back. But deep within me, What I fear most of all... Is that I may never stop writing.”

LoveLifeInspirationalWritingTruthPoetryQuotesSadnessHeartbreakEmotions
Author:Khaled Ibrahim
Create image

“Readers may be divided into four classes: I. Sponges, who absorb all they read, and return it nearly in the same state, only a little dirtied. II. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing, and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. III. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. IV. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.”

ReadingThe Second Lecture
Book:Notes and Lectures upon Shakespeare and Some of the Old Poets and Dramatists: With Other Literary Remains of S. T. Coleridge. Volume 1
Create image

“There are metaphors more real than the people who walk in the street. There are images tucked away in books that live more vividly than many men and women. There are phrases from literary works that have a positively human personality. There are passages from my own writing that chill me with fright, so distinctly do I feel them as people, so sharply outlined do they appear against the walls of my room, at night, in shadows... I've written sentences whose sound, read out loud or silently (impossible to hide their sound), can only be of something that acquired absolute exteriority and a full-fledged soul.”

ReadingLiteratureBooksMetaphors
Book:The Book of Disquiet
Create image

“I loved you unconditionally — for you, not for anything else. I loved you without ever seeing you, without even hearing your voice. I loved you despite everything, and never grew tired. I loved you with complete honesty, as if you were my first… and last love. And yet, all of that was not enough. You were the punishment I deserved… as if love itself were my sin.”

LoveTruthPainPoetryQuotesRelationshipsSadnessHeartbreakEmotionsUnrequited Love
Author:Khaled Ibrahim
Create image