It is the secret life that sustains me now, and as I reach the top of that bridge I say it in a whisper, I say it as a prayer, as regret, and as praise. I can't tell you why I do it or what it means, but each night when I drive toward my southern home and my southern life, I whisper these words: 'Lowenstein, Lowenstein.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a deep emotional connection to one's past and the spiritual significance of remembrance.
In this quote, Pat Conroy expresses the profound impact of memory and personal history on the soul. As he drives toward his 'southern home and southern life,' he whispers the name 'Lowenstein,' which symbolizes something sacred and meaningful, highlighting how our experiences and the places we cherish shape our identity. The duality of whispering these words as both a prayer and a regret underscores the complexity of love, loss, and the nostalgia that often accompany the journey through life.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a speech about personal growth and understanding one's roots.
It enclosed us in its laceries as we watched the moon spill across the Atlantic like wine from an overturned glass. With the light all around us, we felt secret in that moon-infused water like pearls forming in the soft tissues of oysters.
A recipe is a story that ends with a good meal.
Every woman I had ever met who walked through the world appraised and classified by an extraordinary physicality had also received the keys to an unbearable solitude. It was the coefficient of their beauty, the price they had to pay.
Teach them the quiet words of kindness, to live beyond themselves. Urge them toward excellence, drive them toward gentleness, pull them deep into yourself, pull them upward toward manhood, but softly like an angel arranging clouds. Let your spirit move through them softly.
I loved my parents... but that can never change the fact that my father's violence ruined my childhood.
The most powerful words in English are 'Tell me a story,' words that are intimately related to the complexity of history, the origins of language, the continuity of the species, the taproot of our humanity, our singularity, and art itself.
It is the stories we don't get, the ones we miss, pass over, fail to recognize, don't pick up on, that will send us to hell.
My childhood was quite extreme. Sometimes I was so weak I could not stand up. But now I am so strong. Life is unpredictable
There simply aren't any grand moments in life, and we surely don't live in those moments. No, we live in the utterly mundane. We exist in the bathrooms, bedrooms, living rooms, and hallways of life. This is where the character of our life is set. This is where we live the life of faith.
Dance is like life. It exists as you are flitting through it, and when it's over, it's done.
All good things in life are fragile and easily lost
I am grown by sympathy a little eager and sentimental, but leave me alone, and I should relish every hour and what it brought me, the pot-luck of the day, as heartily as the oldest gossip in the bar-room.
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