The Pat Conroy Cookbook Quotes

“Home is a damaged word, bruisable as fruit, in the cruel glossaries of the language I choose to describe the long, fearful march of my childhood. Home was a word that caught in my throat, stung like a paper cut, drew blood in its passover of my life, and hurt me in all the soft places. My longing for home was as powerful as fire in my bloodstream.”
― Pat Conroy, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life

“Because our nation is stupid and Hollywood is coarse, there is no one to tell us of the deep and extraordinary beauty of older women. I now see them all around me and am filled with a fierce joy that one of them has come to live in my house.”
― Pat Conroy, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes and Stories of My Life

“But sometimes stories hide themselves from writers like trolls under bridges. Then the writers of the world must keep their bodies attuned for the sudden appearance of the story that is powerful enough to change their novels and their lives. They must train themselves to recognize the divine moment when a great story reveals itself.”
― Pat Conroy, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life

“Stories have always hunted me down, jumped out at me from the shadows, stalked me and sought me out, grabbed me by the shirtsleeves, and demanded my full attention. I’ve led a life chock-full of stories, and I know now that you have to be shifty and vigilant and ready to receive their incoming fire. Sometimes it takes the passage of years to reveal their actual meaning or import. They disguise themselves with masks, disfigurements, chimeras, and Trojan horses.”
― Pat Conroy, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life

“Alertness is a requirement of the writing life, staying nimble on your feet, open to the stories that will rise up and flower around you while you are walking your dog on the beach or taking the kids to soccer practice. The great stories often make their approach with misdirection, camouflage, or smoke screens to hide their passage through your life.”
― Pat Conroy, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life

“My lifelong affair with tartar sauce began with a plate of fried shrimp eaten in a restaurant in Morehead City when I was six years old. Tartar sauce can lift a simple fried catfish to the realms of ecstasy, turn a fried oyster into an emperor's feast, or ennoble a fried shrimp into knighthood.”
― Pat Conroy, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life

“My passion for eating springs from a childhood not deprived of food but deprived of good food.”
― Pat Conroy, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life

“And something else: it came to me like a postcard or a paining on a cavern wall. When I heard of your stroke, I thought about living in the world without you and I felt the air grow still and the light change. Then I saw him for the first time and understood at last. I saw your sea monster, kindly and serene, mythic and loving, rise out of the Gulf Stream and swim casually toward the shores of Jacksonville, toward his old friend and traveler. I hope that when he comes, you will be ready with all your bags packed. I hope for you that this last voyage through dreams and seas is the best of all.”
― Pat Conroy, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life

“But, until that day, I had no idea I was being raised by one of the goddamnest fighter pilots in the history of the Marine Corps. My father and I looked at each other, and I believe we both realized we had just completed our first great day as father and son.”
― Pat Conroy, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life

“When I write, I wait for the sudden appearance of signs and portents in the air, always on the lookout for secret messages encoded in graffiti or heralds disguised as strangers in the club cars of trains. A bright encounter with twins, a brother and sister, on a morning flight to Rome changed the entire configuration of the Wingo family in The Prince of Tides.”
― Pat Conroy, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life