Gary Shteyngart has written a memoir for the ages. I spat laughter on the first page and closed the last with wet… — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
“I loved the idea that looking at a painting or listening to a concerto could make you somehow "transcend" the day-in, day-out… — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
“Standing in the shower, I feel something on the back of my leg that turns out to be my ass.” — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
“No matter how self-aware you are, memoir wrenches at your insides precisely because it makes you battle with your very self –… — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
Memoir is not an act of history, but an act of memory, which is innately corrupt. — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
I get about five memoirs per week in my mailbox, and few of them inspire anything but a desire to pick up… — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
“In some ways, writing a memoir is knocking yourself out with your own fist, if it’s done right.” — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
The failures of other genres to provide an emotional connection with some of their characters and narratives gives memoir a toehold. — Mary Karr Copy Share 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… — Mary Karr Copy Share
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… — Mary Karr Copy Share
I always say that a poet loves the world, and the prose writer needs to create an alternative world. — Mary Karr Copy Share
“And Meredith says that reminds her of a Camus novel, the one about the plague, and she tells the story of it, the tale… — Mary Karr Copy Share
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… — Mary Karr Copy Share
I'm not nearly smart enough or imaginative enough to tackle the novel form. Never happen. — Mary Karr Copy Share
“Then it hits me. I’m actually kneeling before a toilet. The throne, as other drunks call it. How many drunken nights and slungover mornings… — Mary Karr Copy Share
“I think about the story of Job I heard in Carol Sharp's Sunday school. How he sort of learned to lean into feeling hurt… — Mary Karr Copy Share
I believe in God, but even if you don't, you can believe in a self, the person who is innately who you are. Once… — Mary Karr Copy Share
Love is the only passion which includes in its dreams the happiness of someone else. — Mary Karr Copy Share
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… — Mary Karr Copy Share
“I liked to call myself a poet and had affected a habit of reading classical texts (in translation, of course – I was a… — Mary Karr Copy Share
It turned out to be impossible for me to 'run away' in the sense other American teenagers did. Any movement at all was taken… — Mary Karr Copy Share
“What hurts so bad about youth isn't the actual butt whippings the world delivers. It's the stupid hopes playacting like certainties.” — Mary Karr Copy Share
