Quote

Mother’s particular devils had remained mysterious to me for decades. So had her past. Few born liars ever intentionally embark in truth’s direction, even those who believe that such a journey might axiomatically set them free.

Mary Karr

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Mary Karr
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: January 16
Historian
Poet
Writer
Groves
Texas
Born
Liars
Mother
Mysterious
Past
Decades
Truth
Direction
Ever
Devil
Embark
Might
Journey
Intentionally
Even
Particular
Devils
Believe
Free
Remained

More quotes by Mary Karr

Image
I don't have a copy of my books, and the degree to which I never read them is profound. I never look.
Mary Karr
Image
It strikes me that whatever advantages there are to being a boy--getting to stay out late and having other people wash your clothes and bring you plates of stuff--get undercut by having to play football.
Mary Karr
Image
I'm doomed to act like myself, even when it's inconvenient!
Mary Karr
Image
We are in the grip of some big machine grinding us along. The force of it simplifies everything. A weird calm settled over me from inside out. What is about to happen has stood in line to happen. All the roads out of that instant have been closed, one by one.
Mary Karr
Image
Ninety percent of what's wrong with you could be cured with a hot bath, says God from the bowels of the subway. but we want magic, to win the lottery we never bought a ticket for.
Mary Karr
Image
Ten years, she's dead, and I still find myself some mornings reaching for the phone to call her. She could no more be gone than gravity or the moon.
Mary Karr
Image
I'd spent way more years worrying about how to look like a poet -- buying black clothes, smearing on scarlet lipstick, languidly draping myself over thrift-store furniture -- than I had learning how to assemble words in some discernible order.
Mary Karr
Image
There are women succeeding beyond their wildest dreams because of their sobriety.
Mary Karr
Image
Those are only rumors of suffering. Real suffering has a face and a smell. It lasts in the most intense form no matter what you drape over it. And it knows your name.
Mary Karr
Image
I find a great deal of comfort and care in my faith and prayer. I'd sooner do without air than prayer.
Mary Karr
Image
Im always terrified when Im writing.
Mary Karr
Image
A pool game mixes ritual with geometry.
Mary Karr
Image
Love is the only passion which includes in its dreams the happiness of someone else.
Mary Karr
Image
As a memoirist, I strive for veracity.
Mary Karr
Image
Even the best of us are at least part-time bastards.
Mary Karr
Image
I've never contended that I had a really horrible life.
Mary Karr
Image
I do have a really good memory. I mean, like, I can remember all the phone numbers of everybody on the street I grew up on.
Mary Karr
Image
Most great writers suffer and have no idea how good they are. Most bad writers are very confident. Be willing to be a child and be the Lilliputian in the world of Gulliver, the bat girl in Yankee Stadium. That’s a more fruitful way to be.
Mary Karr
Image
I tell people not to write too soon about their lives. Writing about yourself too young is loaded with psychological complexities.
Mary Karr
Image
The words and sentences you take into your body from books are no less sacred and healing than communion. Surely at least one such person lives in your zip code.
Mary Karr