I'm bred for farm work, and for such folk, the only A's you get come from effort. Strife and strain are all the world can offer, and they temper you into something unbreakable because Lord knows they'll try -- without let up -- to break you.
Mary KarrIt strikes me that whatever advantages there are to being a boy--getting to stay out late and having other people wash your clothes and bring you plates of stuff--get undercut by having to play football.
Mary KarrYour heart, Mary Karr, he'd say. His pen touched my sternum, and it felt for all the world like the point of a dull spear as he said, Your heart knows what your head don't. Or won't.
Mary KarrThose are only rumors of suffering. Real suffering has a face and a smell. It lasts in the most intense form no matter what you drape over it. And it knows your name.
Mary Karr