230 Quotes by Mary Karr

The truth is when I went to graduate school I would’ve said I was among the least talented of the students, I was certainly the least smart, or less educated. But I worked very hard.

Maybe it fostered in me a creeping ambition-deficit disorder, but it could ease an ache. So anything worth doing could be undertaken later. Paint the apartment, write a book, quit booze, sure: tomorrow. Which.

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.

But most of the time, we keep memories packed away. I sometimes liken that moment of sudden unpacking to circus clowns pouring out of a miniature car trunk – how did so much fit into such a small space?

We’re not made to wallow in pleasure. Pleasure is joy’s assassin.

Put your mind where your body is. One day at a time forces you to reckon with the instant you actually occupy, rather than living in fantasy la-la that never comes.

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.

Real You is all you have, and all other paths are false. And in the best case, Real You is so happy to finally be recognized, it rewards you with Originality.

I’m doomed to act like myself, even when it’s inconvenient!