I write a straight story line, and I guess that's what they need. The dialogue also seems to be serviceable in a Hollywood way. But most important, I do the thing that Southerners do naturally - I tell stories. [on his book "The Water is Wide" being made into a movie Conrack (1974)]

One of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family. I could not have been born into a better one. I don't have to look very far for melodrama. It's all right there.

He signed longer inscriptions than I would. He'd write, "I hope you enjoy my son's work of fiction," and he'd underline "fiction" five or six times, and sign it, "Ol' lovable, likable Donald Conroy". [on his father attending his book signings for "The Great Santini"]

[Talking to his mother on her death bed] Oh, Mama, oh, mother of mine, you who opened up the universe for me with all the stuff of language, I'll make you so beautiful. Because you made me a writer and presented me the tongues and a passion for language, I can lift you off that bed, banish the cancer from your cells forever.

[speaking of his wife, author Cassandra King] I'll hear her cackle with laughter at some funny line she's written. I've never cackled with laughter at a single line I've ever written. None of it has given me pleasure. She writes with pleasure and joy, and I sit there in gloom and darkness.