Mary Karr Quotes

I lock all my scaredness down in my stomach until the fear hardens into something I hardly notice. I myself harden into a person that I hardly notice.

Having devoted the first half of my life to the dark, I feel obliged to rever any pinpoint of light now.

Few born liars ever intentionally embark in truth’s direction, even those who believe that such a journey might axiomatically set them free.

. . . for a good story, told often enough puts you in rooms you've never occupied.

We're not made to wallow in pleasure. Pleasure is joy's assassin.

The head can travel a far piece while the body sits in one spot. It can traverse many decades, and many conversations can be had, even with the dead.

Tomorrow! How sweet its prospects for a drunkard the night before. There is no better word. Before the earth hurls itself into sunshine, nothing is not possible.

But it's a neurological fact that the scared self holds on while the reasoned one lets go.

It's hard to be an articulate ghost.

Slurping these spirits is soul preparation, a warped communion, myself serving as god, priest, and congregation.

The American religion-so far as there is one anymore-seems to be doubt. Whoever believes the least wins, because he'll never be found wrong.

Just being out of the house with Daddy like this at Fisher's lights me up enough for somebody to read by me.

A university is a city of ideas, and we're grateful you became citizens of our city.

I think a dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.

Poetry privileges music and is aesthetically more challenging. Prose privileges information and is emotionally more challenging.

Prose cannot compete with the economy of poetry, the ability to have a full artistic experience in a short period of time.