American - Poet | January 16, 1955 -
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.
Mary Karr
DogGreatPrayerWritingSayWant
Every poem probably has sixty drafts behind it.
SixtyPoemBehindEveryDrafts
Poetry is for me Eucharistic. You take someone else's suffering into your body, their passion comes into your body, and in doing that you commune, you take communion, you make a community with others.
PassionCommunityPoetrySuffering
I've never contended that I had a really horrible life.
LifeNeverHorribleReallyHad
I was a philosophy major as an undergraduate, and I'm just an arrogant little thing. It's hard for me to admit that I can't understand something, let alone not be in charge of it.
AloneMePhilosophyAdmitUnderstand
It's completely through prayer that I came to believe in God. I just sensed a presence south of my neck.
GodPrayerBelievePresenceNeck
I'm always terrified when I'm writing.
WritingAlwaysTerrified
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.
GodMeFailWillingWriterThing
My idea of art is, you write something that makes people feel so strongly that they get some conviction about who they want to be or what they want to do. It's morally useful not in a political way, but it makes your heart bigger; it's emotionally and spiritually empowering.
HeartArtPeopleFeelPoliticalYou
Poetry privileges music and is aesthetically more challenging. Prose privileges information and is emotionally more challenging.
MusicPoetryInformationMoreProse
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.
WorkFamilyMarriageParentsDown
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.
NaturePeopleRelationshipsHuman
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