"When the ceremony was over, I found The Bear and handed him my diploma along with a ballpoint pen. "Whats this for, lamb?" "I want you to sign it, Colonel. I want you to make it official," I answered. "I want the name of a man I can respect on my diploma, Colonel." He handed me back the diploma without signing it. "There already is, Bubba," he answered. "There already is." And he pointed to my name."
Donald Patrick Conroy was an American author who wrote several acclaimed novels and memoirs; his books The Water Is Wide, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini were made into films, the last two being nominated for Oscars. He is recognized as a leading figure of late-20th-century American Southern literature.
"You have never been blessed out or bawled out or chewed out unless you got it from The Boo in his prime. Did I say he was five times louder than God? Im sorry if that sounds sacrilegious and it certainly is not true. The Boo was at least ten times louder than God and I was scared of him my entire cadet career."
"Donald Conroy is the only person I have ever known whose self-esteem was absolutely unassailable. There was not one thing about himself that my father did not like, nor was there one thing about himself that he would change. He simply adored the man he was and walked with perfect confidence through every encounter in his life. Dad wished everyone could be just like him. His stubbornness was an art form. The Great Santini did what he did, when he wanted to do it, and woe to the man who got in his way. Once I introduced my father before he gave a speech to an Atlanta audience. I said at the end of the introduction, "My father decided to go into the Marine Corps on the day he discovered his IQ was the temperature of this room." My father rose to the podium, stared down at the audience, and said without skipping a beat, "My God, its hot in here! It must be at least 180 degrees."
"There was only one cadet I ever really hated. Just one name I can think of," The Boo said. "Thatll make an interesting story for the book, Colonel. Who is the jerk?" I asked. "It was you, Conroy. Just you. There was something about you that I hated when you first walked into fourth battalion, you worthless bum."
"About the war between me and technology: it appears that technology is rolling over me like a blitzkrieg. Im a victim of all its barbarisms. I still cant type, which makes my emails seem composed by a highlands baboon. Once or twice a week, I check my e-mail, whether I need to or not. I understand that most human beings check theirs with more frequency. Twitter is an unknown factor in my life and Ive never seen Facebook, even though Im told I have a presence on both of these entities. People give me looks of pity and ask me why I want to wallow in my disconnection from a very connected world. It is simple. The world seems way too connected for me now. It seems to be ruining the lives of teenagers and bringing out the bestial cruelty in those who can hide their vileness under the mask of some idiotic pseudonym. I like to sit alone and think about things. Solitude is as precious as coin silver and it takes labor to attain it. I can be frivolous without Twitter and Facebook. I turned sixty-five this year and I take old age seriously. Theres work to be done."
"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."
"One can do anything, anything at all, I thought, if provided with a passionate and gifted teacher."