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121 " The body's a funny thing. It's so full of surprises that it makes conventional wisdom seem silly. "
― Pat Conroy , Beach Music
122 " I became one of those anonymous Americans who tries to keep his mind sharp and inquisitive while performing all the humiliating rituals of the middle class "
― Pat Conroy , The Prince of Tides
123 " I wanted to be curious and smart and unappeasable until I got a sentence to mean exactly what I ordered it to mean. "
― Pat Conroy , My Losing Season: A Memoir
124 " it had been a winter of deadening seriousness, when all the illusions and bright dreams of my early twenties had withered and died. I did not yet have the interior resources to dream new dreams; I was far too busy mourning the death of the old ones and wondering how I was to survive without them. I was sure I could replace them somehow , but was not sure I could restore their brassy luster or dazzling impress . "
125 " Honor is the presence of God in man. "
― Pat Conroy , The Lords of Discipline
126 " Writing is the only way I have to explain my own life to myself. "
― Pat Conroy , My Reading Life
127 " I have built a city from the books I've read. A good book sings a a timeless music that is heard in the choir lofts, and balconies, and theaters that thrived within that secret city inside me. "
128 " I do not think I was a hothead—not then and not now. I thought I was right. I had read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bible. Segregation seemed evil from the time I was a boy. Slavery is an abomination on the American soul, ineradicable stain on our body politic. But Penn Center lit a fire that has never gone out, and the election of President Barack Obama was one of the happiest days of my life. "
― Pat Conroy , A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life
129 " I lived with the terrible knowledge that one day I would be an old man still waiting for my real life to start. Already, I pitied that old man. "
130 " Comely was the town by the curving river that they dismantled in a year's time. Beautiful was Colleton in her last spring as she flung azaleas like a girl throwing rice at a desperate wedding. In dazzling profusion, Colleton ripened in a gauze of sweet gardens and the town ached beneath a canopy of promissory fragrance. "
131 " The water was pure and cold and came out of the Apennines tasting like snow melted in the hands of a pretty girl. "
132 " Her laughter was a shiny thing, like pewter flung high in the air. "
133 " It enclosed us in its laceries as we watched the moon spill across the Atlantic like wine from an overturned glass. With the light all around us, we felt secret in that moon-infused water like pearls forming in the soft tissues of oysters. "
134 " ...I lived for those long casual walks down the beach and the sight of her small footprints in the glistening wet sand... "
135 " We old athletes carry the disfigurements and markings of contests remembered only by us and no one else. Nothing is more lost than a forgotten game. "
― Pat Conroy
136 " In sport the mind serves as the acolyte and apprentice of the body. Nothing interferes with the flow of the game more than the athlete who obsesses about his every move on the court. You move, you react, you recover, you drive, and the thinking is seamless and invisible in the secret codes of your game. "
137 " When we cuss each other out, call each other the vilest names on earth, and put each other down with thoughtless cruelty, it is the only way we know and the only language we have to express our ardent love for each other. "
138 " I bet they love those games on Friday night more than they do segregation. "
― Pat Conroy , South of Broad
139 " Basketball allowed me to revere my father without him knowing what I was up to. I took up basketball as a form of homage and mimicry. "
140 " If not for sports, I do not think my father would have ever talked to me. "