It 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 KarrI 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.
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 KarrI kept the fingers of my left hand crossed all the time, while on my right-hand fingers I counted anything at allโsteps to the refrigerator, seconds on the clock, words in a sentenceโto keep my head occupied. The counting felt like something to hang on to, as if finding the right numbers might somehow crack the code on whatever system ran the slippery universe we were moving through.
Mary Karr