Mary Karr Quotes
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Prose cannot compete with the economy of poetry, the ability to have a full artistic experience in a short period of time.
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I'm not nearly smart enough or imaginative enough to tackle the novel form. Never happen.
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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.
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I think the problem with visual media like TV is that they're reductive.
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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 about prayer to a secular audience is tap-dancing on the radio. I want to say, 'Gee whiz, isn't this great,' and have everyone's head cocked like the RCA dog.
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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.
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I have a completely addictive personality. Diet Coke is my last - God, I know people counting days off Diet Coke; I'm such a Diet Cokehead. Now I won't let myself buy it.
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There are all kinds of things God wants me to do that I'm very obstreperous about.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Every poem probably has sixty drafts behind it.
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Success has affected my self-definition in that I have more money. Writers pooh-pooh that idea, but it's a huge deal.
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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 you fully become that person, then everything you do will be blessed.
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I think we fall in love and become adults and become citizens in a way by writing stories about ourselves.
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Poetry privileges music and is aesthetically more challenging. Prose privileges information and is emotionally more challenging.
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As a memoirist, I strive for veracity.
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I'm always terrified when I'm writing.
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There are women succeeding beyond their wildest dreams because of their sobriety.
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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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Nobody sounds good writing about your divorce, let's face it.
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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.