The Prince of Tides

by Pat Conroy

To love one’s children is to love oneself, and this was a state of supererogatory grace denied my parents by birth and circumstance.

Eventually she will die the way all old people in America die . . . from humiliation, incontinence, boredom, and neglect.

Her secret, we would discover, was that 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.

Love has no weapons; it has no fists. Love does not bruise, nor does it draw blood.

If your parents disapprove of you and are cunning with their disapproval, there will never come a new dawn when you can become convinced of your own value. There is no fixing a damaged childhood. The best you can hope for is to make the sucker float.