Quotes from The Water is Wide

“I dislike poor teachers. They are criminals to me. I’ve seen so much cruelty toward children. I’ve seen so many children not given the opportunity to live up to their potential as human beings.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“No man or woman has the right to humiliate children, even in the sacrosanct name of education. No one has the right to beat children with leather straps, even under the sacred auspices of all school boards in the world.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“And in that instant was born the terrible awareness that life eventually broke every man, but in different ways and at different times.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“Lightning flashed around the island; thunder played its favorite game of scaring the crap out of all the shivering mortals on the earth below.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“the forlorn appearance assumed by all houses that have lost their people.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“It was funny how we thought education to be the great gilded key which would solve all problems, eliminate all poverty and disease, eradicate differences between social classes, and bring the children of okra-planters up to par with the children of emperors.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“One noteworthy thing about South Carolina is the quality of school-bus drivers in the state. To qualify for a bus license one must have reached puberty and be able to recite the alphabet without stuttering.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“I learned that politicians are not supposed to help people. They simply listen to people, nod their heads painfully, commiserate at proper intervals, promise to do all they can, and then do nothing. It was very instructive. I could probably have enlisted more action from a bleached jellyfish washed ashore in a seasonal storm.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“Christ must do a lot of puking when he reflects upon the good works done in his name.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“Christ must do a lot of puking when he reflects upon the good works done in his name. Anyway,”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“Unlike most women I have known, she placed no value on shallow pretensions or hypocritical displays of gentility.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“life was good, but it was hard; we would prepare to meet it head on, but we would enjoy the preparation.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“I reveled in class discussion and the Socratic method of drawing substance out of calcified minds untrained to think.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“The teacher must always be on the attack, looking for new ideas, changing worn-out tactics, and never, ever falling into patterns that lead to student ennui.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“We Shall Overcome” by Pete Seeger. I remember that moment with crystal clarity and I comprehend it as a turning point in my life: a moment terrible in its illumination of a toad in my soul, an ugliness so pervasive that it seemed my insides were vomit.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“You the white teacher. I thought you one of the boys.” Then she paused. “You gonna drink it?” “Yep.” “Teachers drink?” “Yep.” “That’s good. Oh Gawd, that’s so good. I got some gin in that there paper bag when you finish.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“My pre-Yamacraw theory of teaching held several sacred tenets, among these being that the teacher must always maintain an air of insanity, or of eccentricity out of control, if he is to catch and hold the attention of his students. The teacher must always be on the attack, looking for new ideas, changing worn-out tactics, and never, ever falling into patterns that lead to student ennui.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“Everyone was surprised and enraged by the usurpation of this inalienable Caucasian right to park one’s ass on a leather stool and drink a Coke.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“Son, you can do more good at Yamacraw than you could ever do in the Peace Corps. And you would be helping Americans, Pat. And I, for one, think it’s very important to help Americans.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“My poor boat poked along the waterway with the blinding speed of a manatee.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“Among the peoples of the world I am not universally admired for the bell-like clarity of my diction. Words slide out of my mouth like fat fish. Having lived my life in various parts of Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas and having been sired by a gruff-talking Marine from Chicago and a grits-and-gravy honey from Rome, Georgia, what has remained is an indefinable nonspeech, flavored subtly with a nonaccent, and decipherable to no one, black or white, on the American continent.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“Bernie could talk a Baptist into burning a Bible,”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“I was becoming convinced that the world was a colorful, variegated grab bag full of bastards. But”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“that life was good, but it was hard; we would prepare to meet it head on, but we would enjoy the preparation.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“Think instead about children. People. Human beings. Feel for once that education is about people—not figures.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“Mrs. Brown, whose primary job on the island”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“Teaching is a record of failures. But the glory of teaching is in the attempt.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

“pervasive part of the island culture”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Water is Wide

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

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