Pat Conroy: Why I Write

“I do not record the word exactly as it comes to me but transform it by making it pass through a prism of fabulous stories I have collected along the way.  I gather stories the way a lepidopterist hoards his chloroformed specimens of rare moths, or a sunburned entomologist admires his well-ordered bottles of Costa Rican beetles.  Stories are the vessels I use to interpret the world to myself. I am often called ‘a storyteller’ by flippant and unadmiring critics.  I revel in the title.  I bathe in the lotions and unguents of that sweet word.”

-Pat Conroy, Why I Write: Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction