230 Quotes by Mary Karr

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.

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

Success has affected my self-definition in that I have more money. Writers pooh-pooh that idea, but it's a huge deal.

Young writers often mistakenly choose a certain vein or style based on who they want to be, unconsciously trying to blot out who they actually are. You want to escape yourself.

The audiobooks I buy are never first-time reads - only rereadings of books I know well that I find intoxicating.

I kept the fingers of my left hand crossed all the time, while on my right-hand fingers I counted anything at all—steps to the refrigerator, seconds on the clock, words in a sentence—to keep my head occupied. The counting felt like something to hang on to, as if finding the right numbers might somehow crack the code on whatever system ran the slippery universe we were moving through.

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.

It turned out to be impossible for me to 'run away' in the sense other American teenagers did. Any movement at all was taken for progress in my family.

Love is the only passion which includes in its dreams the happiness of someone else.