Pain doesn't travel in straight lines. It circles back around and comes up behind you. It's the circles that kill you. - Pat Conroy
I wanted to become the seeker, the aroused and passionate explorer, and it was better going at it knowing nothing at all, always choosing the unmarked bottle, always choosing your own unproven method, armed with nothing but faith and a belief in astonishment. - Pat Conroy
Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey. - Pat Conroy
Read the great books, gentlemen, Mr. Monte said one day. Just the great ones. Ignore the others. There’s not enough time. - Pat Conroy
In matters of good-lookingness, we writers are the ugliest of the bunch, and normally our appearance is akin to that of someone investigating a crime scene; though the women in American writing keep producing world-class beauty in droves, and there are many breathtaking writers among them. - Pat Conroy
You have to pay for this view (onto which he looks while writing), so our expenses keep us pretty motivated to write. It's a vicious cycle. - Pat Conroy
Great words, arranged with cunning and artistry, could change the perceived world for some readers - Pat Conroy
I've always found paranoia to be a perfectly defensible position. - Pat Conroy
When mom and dad went to war the only prisoners they took were the children - Pat Conroy
When you write by hand, you don't have the excessive freedom of a computer. When I write down something, I have to be serious about it. I have to ask myself, "Is this necessary at this point in the book? - Pat Conroy
Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers, that the mind can never break off from the journey. - Pat Conroy