# Quote — Pat Conroy, The Water Is Wide

> The South of humanity and goodness is slowly rising out of the fallen temple of hatred and white man's nationalism. The town retains her die-hards and nigger-haters and always will. Yet they grow older and crankier with each passing day. When Beaufort digs another four hundred holes in her plentiful grave-yards, deposits there the rouged and elderly corpses, and covers them with the sandy, lowcountry soil, then another whole army of the Old South will be silenced and not heard from again. The religion of the Confederacy and apartheid will one day be subdued by the passage of years. The land will be the final arbiter of human conflict; no matter how intense the conflict, the victory of earth and grave will be complete.

- Author: [Pat Conroy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pat-conroy.md)
- Book: [The Water Is Wide](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pat-conroy/the-water-is-wide.md)
- Page: 313
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pat_Conroy#The_Water_is_Wide_(1972)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/pat-conroy/the-water-is-wide/the-south-of-humanity

## More from this book

> During the entire period of my banishment and trial, I wanted to tell Piedmont and Bennington that what was happening between us was not confined to Beaufort, South Carolina. I wanted to tell them about the river that was rising quickly, flooding the marshes and threatening the dry land. I wanted them to know that their day was ending. When I saw them at the trial, I knew that they were the soldiers of the rear guard, captains of a doomed army retreating through the snow and praying that the quick, dark wolves, waiting in the cold, would come no closer. They were old men and could not accept the new sun rising out of the strange waters. The world was very different now.

p. 311 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pat-conroy/the-water-is-wide/during-the-entire.md)

> Christ must do a lot of puking when he reflects upon the good works done in his name.

p. 49 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pat-conroy/the-water-is-wide/christ-must-do-a-lot.md)

> Lightning flashed around the island; thunder played its favorite game of scaring the crap out of all the shivering mortals on the earth below.

p. 24 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pat-conroy/the-water-is-wide/lightning-flashed-around.md)