“it was dawning on me how uphill a poet's path was, and I confessed to her that if I had to be… — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
In my godless household, poems were the closest we came to sacred speech -- the only prayers said. — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
Poetry privileges music and is aesthetically more challenging. Prose privileges information and is emotionally more challenging. — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
Prose cannot compete with the economy of poetry, the ability to have a full artistic experience in a short period of time. — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
I always say that a poet loves the world, and the prose writer needs to create an alternative world. — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
Such a small, pure object a poem could be, made of nothing but air a tiny string of letters, maybe small enough… — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
People who didn't live pre-Internet can't grasp how devoid of ideas life in my hometown was. I stopped in the middle of… — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
I'd spent way more years worrying about how to look like a poet -- buying black clothes, smearing on scarlet lipstick, languidly… — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
Poetry is for me Eucharistic. You take someone else's suffering into your body, their passion comes into your body, and in doing… — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
“I liked to call myself a poet and had affected a habit of reading classical texts (in translation, of course – I… — Mary Karr Copy Share Image
“At the Sound of the Gunshot, Leave A Message That's what my friend spoke into his grim machine the winter he first… — 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
