Childhood was terrifying for me. A kid has no control. You’re three feet tall, flat broke, unemployed, and illiterate. Terror snaps you awake. You pay keen attention. People can just pick you up and move you and put you down.
Mary KarrThe shreiking fight or the out-of-character insult endures forever, while the daily sweetness dissolves like sugar in water.
Mary KarrHow much smaller the large places are once we're grown up, when we have car keys and credit cards.
Mary KarrIf you live in the dark a long time and the sun comes out, you do not cross into it whistling. There's an initial uprush of relief at first, then-for me, anyway- a profound dislocation. My old assumptions about how the world works are buried, yet my new ones aren't yet operational.There's been a death of sorts, but without a few days in hell, no resurrection is possible.
Mary Karr