Pat Conroy says…

From The Water is Wide:

“I saw the necessity of living and accepting bullcrap in my midst.  It was everywhere.  In the teachers’ manuals, in the platitudes muttered by educators, in schoolboards, in the community, and most significantly in myself.  I could be so self-righteous, so inflexiblewhen I thought I was right or that the children had been wronged.  I lacked diplomacy and would not compromise.  To survive in the future I would have to learn the complex art of ass-kissing, that honorable American custom that makes the world go ’round.  Survival is the most important thing.  As a bona fide ass-kisser, I might lose a measure of self respect, but I could be teaching and helping kids.”