A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.

I get about five memoirs per week in my mailbox, and few of them inspire anything but a desire to pick up the channel changer.

He never gave up on me, I only stopped being matriculated.

A pool game mixes ritual with geometry.

Your 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.

I'm not nearly smart enough or imaginative enough to tackle the novel form. Never happen.

But I'm not ready to stop listening to the screwed-up inner voice that's been ordering me around for a lifetime. My head thinks it can kill me... and go on living without me.