Pat Conroy (1945-2016) Tribute List

Author Pat Conroy died on March 4, 2016 of pancreatic cancer. He specialized in tales of the American South, drawn from his own difficult childhood. He once said: "My mother's voice and my father's fists are two bookends of my childhood, and they form the basis of my art." It is no exaggeration to say that learning to become a storyteller and literature helped save Conroy from the horrors of his early life. Here are 13 vocabulary words from quotes from the mind and work of Pat Conroy.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. aberration
    a state or condition markedly different from the norm
    Happiness is an accident of nature, a beautiful and flawless aberration.
    - The Lords of Discipline
  2. exuberant
    joyously unrestrained
    I've been in ten thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous English teachers and soaked up every single thing those magnificent men and women had to give. I cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me when I was a boy and presenting me with the precious gift of the English language.
    -Letter to the Charleston Gazette, 2007
  3. astonishment
    the feeling that accompanies something extremely surprising
    I wanted to become the seeker, the aroused and passionate explorer, and it was better to go 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.
    - The Lords of Discipline
  4. intricacy
    the quality of having elaborately complex detail
    No story is a straight line. The geometry of a human life is too imperfect and complex, too distorted by the laughter of time and the bewildering intricacies of fate to admit the straight line into its system of laws.
    - Beach Music
  5. quicksilver
    liable to sudden unpredictable change
    These are the quicksilver moments of my childhood I cannot remember entirely. Irresistible and emblematic, I can recall them only in fragments and shivers of the heart.
    - Prince of Tides
  6. inordinate
    beyond normal limits
    But even her demons she invested with inordinate beauty, consecrated them with the dignity of her attention.
    - Prince of Tides
  7. consecrated
    made, declared, or believed to be holy
    But even her demons she invested with inordinate beauty, consecrated them with the dignity of her attention.
    - Prince of Tides
  8. lucid
    transparently clear; easily understandable
    Good writing is the hardest form of thinking. It involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear. If the writing is good, then the result seems effortless and inevitable.
    - My Reading Life
  9. ineffable
    defying expression or description
    ...when you want to say something life-changing or ineffable in a single sentence, you face both the limitations of the sentence itself and the extent of your own talent.
    - My Reading Life
  10. execrable
    of very poor quality or condition
    she treated her books execrably. I would rarely open a volume that she had not desecrated by underlining her favorite sections with a ball-point pen. Once I had told her that I would rather see a museum bombed than a book underlined, but she dismissed my argument as mere sentimentality. She marked her books so that stunning images and ideas would not be lost to her.
    -Prince of Tides
  11. prosaic
    not fanciful or imaginative
    I had come to a place where I was meant to be. I don't mean anything so prosaic as a sense of coming home. This was different, very different. It was like arriving at a place much safer than home.
    - The Lords of Discipline
  12. insatiable
    impossible to fulfill, appease, or gratify
    I had declared in public my desire to be a writer ... I wanted to develop a curiosity that was oceanic and insatiable as well as a desire to learn and use every word in the English language that didn't sound pretentious or ditzy.
    - My Losing Season: A Memoir
  13. pretentious
    intended to attract notice and impress others
    I had declared in public my desire to be a writer ... I wanted to develop a curiosity that was oceanic and insatiable as well as a desire to learn and use every word in the English language that didn't sound pretentious or ditzy.
    - My Losing Season: A Memoir
Created on Sat Mar 05 04:10:24 EST 2016 (updated Sat Mar 05 11:45:13 EST 2016)

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