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" I've never contended that I had a really horrible life. "
Mary Karr
Really
Life
Never
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" I always thought my family was so bizarre, so when people started coming up to me and saying, 'My family was exactly like yours,' I was completely knocked out. "
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" The failures of other genres to provide an emotional connection with some of their characters and narratives gives memoir a toehold. "
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" There are women succeeding beyond their wildest dreams because of their sobriety. "
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Sobriety
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" As a memoirist, I strive for veracity. "
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" I tell people not to write too soon about their lives. Writing about yourself too young is loaded with psychological complexities. "
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Writing
" Every poem probably has sixty drafts behind it. "
Mary Karr
Drafts
Every
Poem
" I don't think I look like the pope's favorite Catholic - at least not under close scrutiny. "
Mary Karr
Catholic
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Think
" I'm always terrified when I'm writing. "
Mary Karr
Always
Terrified
Writing
" I think we fall in love and become adults and become citizens in a way by writing stories about ourselves. "
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Writing
" Nobody sounds good writing about your divorce, let's face it. "
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Face
Nobody
Writing
" Childhood was terrifying for me. A kid has no control. You're three feet tall, flat broke, unemployed, and illiterate. Terror snaps you awake. You pay keen attention. People can just pick you up and move you and put you down. "
Mary Karr
Childhood
Control
Feet
" When I got sober, I thought giving up was saying goodbye to all the fun and all the sparkle, and it turned out to be just the opposite. That's when the sparkle started for me. "
Mary Karr
Thought
Fun
Goodbye
" 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
Never
Look
Copy
" The thing I have to do as a writer, and that God permits me to do, is that I have to be willing to fail. "
Mary Karr
Writer
Fail
God
" Prose cannot compete with the economy of poetry, the ability to have a full artistic experience in a short period of time. "
Mary Karr
Economy
Experience
Poetry
" When people suffer, their relationships usually suffer as well. Period. And we all suffer because, as the Buddha says, that's the nature of being human and wanting stuff we don't always get. "
Mary Karr
Relationships
People
Always
" 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
Street
Good
Memory
" If dysfunction means that a family doesn't work, then every family ambles into some arena in which that happens, where relationships get strained or even break down entirely. We fail each other or disappoint each other. That goes for parents, siblings, kids, marriage partners - the whole enchilada. "
Mary Karr
Family
Marriage
Down
" I think being tortured as a virtue is a kind of antiquated sense of what it is to be an artist. It comes out of that Symbolist idea, back to Rimbaud and all that disordering of the senses and all of that being some exalted state. When I've been that way, I've always been less exalted than I would have liked. "
Mary Karr
Virtue
Way
Artist
" Having a great dad probably permitted me to pal around with guys in a way that some women don't. "
Mary Karr
Women
Great
Having
" People who didn't live pre-Internet can't grasp how devoid of ideas life in my hometown was. The only bookstores sold Bibles the size of coffee tables and dashboard Virgin Marys that glowed in the dark. "
Mary Karr
Live
People
Dark
" I've been teaching classes on memoirs since 1986, and I've been reading them all my life, and I think that I would like to write a critical book that might have some of those how-to elements in it. "
Mary Karr
Think
Reading
My Life
" I was a philosophy major as an undergraduate, and I'm just an arrogant little thing. It's hard for me to admit that I can't understand something, let alone not be in charge of it. "
Mary Karr
Admit
Understand
Alone
" I think the problem with visual media like TV is that they're reductive. "
Mary Karr
Like
Problem
Media
" Both my parents were agnostic. My mother was kind of a Buddhist. She had some spiritual tendencies, but they were kind of flaky - New Agey, you know? Which is partly why I'm suspicious of that sort of thing. I'm skeptical of any spiritual practice that doesn't involve other people and doesn't involve some sort of consistent tradition. "
Mary Karr
People
Know
Spiritual
" The emotional stakes a memoirist bets with could not be higher, and it's physically enervating. I nap on a daily basis like a cross-country trucker. "
Mary Karr
Nap
Daily
Emotional
" I find a great deal of comfort and care in my faith and prayer. I'd sooner do without air than prayer. "
Mary Karr
Prayer
Air
Care
" I'm not nearly smart enough or imaginative enough to tackle the novel form. Never happen. "
Mary Karr
Happen
Tackle
Smart
" I'm always astonished by the confidence my readers put in me. "
Mary Karr
Always
Astonished
Me
" On a piece of prose, you have to work at least six hours a day. I don't know how you can do that and teach and raise a kid and paint the house. "
Mary Karr
Teach
You
Work