Pat Conroy
Pat Conroy
Donald Patrick "Pat" Conroywas a New York Times bestselling American author who wrote several acclaimed novels and memoirs. Two of his novels, The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini, were made into Oscar-nominated films. He is recognized as a leading figure of late-20th century Southern literature...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth26 October 1945
CityAtlanta, GA
CountryUnited States of America
calls carefully fear life major writers
Fear is the major cargo that American writers must stow away when the writing life calls them into carefully chosen ranks.
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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.
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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.
subtle travel writers
There are other writers who try for subtle and minimalists effects, but I don't travel in that tribe.
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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.
attacked draw fear forced great trying
My great fear of being attacked or trivialized by my contemporaries made me concentrate on what I was trying to do as a writer. It forced me to draw some conclusions that were my own.
There's always a version of me who is the narrator. And I make myself look better than other people.
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.
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When I bought a collection of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, I returned home with a bright enthusiasm to begin the long march into the Russian soul. Though I've failed to read either man to completion, they both helped me to imagine that my fictional South Carolina was as vast a literary acreage as their Russia.
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I have found human nature a bit contradictory in my living of it. Human life is incredibly strange.
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Love came in wounded and frantic ways to my dismaying family.
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I still get weepy when I see a father being nice to his child. It so affects me.
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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.
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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.