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Now Go Out There Quotes
Now Go Out There
by
Mary Karr676 ratings, 3.65 average rating, 92 reviews
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Now Go Out There Quotes
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“Being smart and rich are lucky, but being curious and compassionate will save your ass. Being curious and compassionate can take you out of your ego and edge your soul towards wonder.”
― Now Go Out There
― Now Go Out There
“Bad things are gonna' happen to you, because they happen to us all. And worrying won't stave the really bad things off. Don't make the mistake of comparing your twisted-up insides to other people's blow-dried outsides. Even the most privileged person in this stadium suffers the torments of the damned just going about the business of being human.”
― Now Go Out There
― Now Go Out There
“Far as I can tell, a dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.”
― Now Go Out There
― Now Go Out There
“A BLESSING FROM MY SIXTEEN YEARS’ SON
I have this son who assembled inside me
during Hurricane Gloria. In a flash, he appeared,
in a tiny blaze. Outside, pines toppled.
Phone lines snapped and hissed like cobras.
Inside, he was a raw pearl: microscopic, luminous.
Look at the muscled obelisk of him now
pawing through the icebox for more grapes.
Sixteen years and not a bone broken,
not a single stitch. By his age,
I was marked more ways, and small.
He’s a slouching six foot two,
with implausible blue eyes, which settle
on the pages of Emerson’s “Self Reliance”
with profound belligerence.
A girl with a navel ring
could make his cell phone buzz,
or an Afro’d boy leaning on a mop at Taco Bell—
creatures strange as dragons or eels.
Balanced on a kitchen stool, each gives counsel
arcane as any oracle’s. Dante claims school is
harshing my mellow. Rodney longs to date
a tattooed girl, because he wants a woman
willing to do stuff she’ll regret.
They’ve come to lead my son
into his broadening spiral.
Someday soon, the tether
will snap. I birthed my own mom
into oblivion. The night my son smashed
the car fender, then rode home
in the rain-streaked cop cruiser, he asked, Did you
and Dad screw up so much?
He’d let me tuck him in,
my grandmother’s wedding quilt
from 1912 drawn to his goateed chin. Don’t
blame us, I said. You’re your own
idiot now. At which he grinned.
The cop said the girl in the crimped Chevy
took it hard. He’d found my son
awkwardly holding her in the canted headlights,
where he’d draped his own coat
over her shaking shoulders. My fault,
he’d confessed right off.
Nice kid, said the cop.”
― Now Go Out There
I have this son who assembled inside me
during Hurricane Gloria. In a flash, he appeared,
in a tiny blaze. Outside, pines toppled.
Phone lines snapped and hissed like cobras.
Inside, he was a raw pearl: microscopic, luminous.
Look at the muscled obelisk of him now
pawing through the icebox for more grapes.
Sixteen years and not a bone broken,
not a single stitch. By his age,
I was marked more ways, and small.
He’s a slouching six foot two,
with implausible blue eyes, which settle
on the pages of Emerson’s “Self Reliance”
with profound belligerence.
A girl with a navel ring
could make his cell phone buzz,
or an Afro’d boy leaning on a mop at Taco Bell—
creatures strange as dragons or eels.
Balanced on a kitchen stool, each gives counsel
arcane as any oracle’s. Dante claims school is
harshing my mellow. Rodney longs to date
a tattooed girl, because he wants a woman
willing to do stuff she’ll regret.
They’ve come to lead my son
into his broadening spiral.
Someday soon, the tether
will snap. I birthed my own mom
into oblivion. The night my son smashed
the car fender, then rode home
in the rain-streaked cop cruiser, he asked, Did you
and Dad screw up so much?
He’d let me tuck him in,
my grandmother’s wedding quilt
from 1912 drawn to his goateed chin. Don’t
blame us, I said. You’re your own
idiot now. At which he grinned.
The cop said the girl in the crimped Chevy
took it hard. He’d found my son
awkwardly holding her in the canted headlights,
where he’d draped his own coat
over her shaking shoulders. My fault,
he’d confessed right off.
Nice kid, said the cop.”
― Now Go Out There
