Mary Karr Quote

As for the actual validity of the notion [of] an immovable self, ever-firm, you're there only by half, at best...You'll spend decades trying to will 'same self' into being. But you'll keep shape-shifting. Probably everyone must, so long as the body's treading sod or drawing breath. What's unalterable as bronze is the image of your radiant friend that morning barefoot on the porch, with sun in her rampant hair. She's holding out the bowl of fruit loops, and touching your shoulder as if to bestow the right name upon you: the one you'll bear before you through the world, each letter forged into a gleaming shield.

Mary Karr

As for the actual validity of the notion [of] an immovable self, ever-firm, you're there only by half, at best...You'll spend decades trying to will 'same self' into being. But you'll keep shape-shifting. Probably everyone must, so long as the body's treading sod or drawing breath. What's unalterable as bronze is the image of your radiant friend that morning barefoot on the porch, with sun in her rampant hair. She's holding out the bowl of fruit loops, and touching your shoulder as if to bestow the right name upon you: the one you'll bear before you through the world, each letter forged into a gleaming shield.

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About Mary Karr

Mary Karr (born January 16, 1955) is an American poet, essayist and memoirist from East Texas. She is widely noted for her 1995 bestselling memoir The Liars' Club. Karr is the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University.