Mary Karr Quotes

Boys are so much drama.

When you're a man you try and be macho.

Black men struggle with masculinity so much. The idea that we must always be strong really presses us all down - it keeps us from growing.

Men are recognizing that they have been forced to conform to a very narrow and rather two-dimensional picture of maleness and manhood that they have never had the freedom to question.

Nobody tells us how to be men. We just are.

I'm kind of like a guy who's missing a little bit of the guy gene. Like, I love steak, but the notion of golfing is the last thing I would want to do. I love women, but I'm also a mama's boy, and some of my best friends are women. So I'm kinda half guy's guy.

If you're a man and you've ever been antique shopping during a big football game, you're either gay or married.

The male has been persuaded to assume a certain onerous and disagreeable role with the promise of rewards -- material and psychological. Women may in the first place even have put it into his head. BE A MAN! may have been, metaphorically, what Eve uttered at the critical moment in the garden of Eden.

I didn't want to be a boy, ever, but I was outraged that his height and intelligence were graces for him and gaucheries for me.

Why were the little girls all frightened To be just what they are The boys were told to ask themselves How high how far The girls were told to reach the shelves While the boys were reaching stars That's why little girls were frightened To be just what they are.

I think that women are raised to believe that they're supposed to want certain things, and so you feel like you're supposed to apologize when you don't want those things.

There was a time where I knew I was as funny as many dudes, but I had people telling me, 'You have to wear a dress onstage. You need to be more feminine.'

It's good to see a man who isn't afraid to live out his masculinity.

Over the years, we settled into American life and embraced it fully. But having come from a different culture, I didn't know the boundaries of American culture. Which is that, as a girl, you didn't play football or soccer at lunch with the boys, and to be cool, you didn't get into math Olympiad.

I went to an all-boys school, where I played rugby, so ballet wasn't the coolest thing to do.

If you're not the guy who is going to puff your chest out like a rooster and go fight somebody, our society discards you.

I want my sons to escape the pressure to be a particular kind of masculine that is so damaging to men and to the people around them.

No boys liked Take That, and it was weird if you did because they danced around and wore matching clothes. But I didn't grow up with a dad who told me something was manly or not manly.

I grew up playing soccer with the boys - quite far from reading magazines.

The Cure wrote 'Boys Don't Cry,' and it's the same today: as a boy, you're not meant to show your emotions, but if you don't have a job or any prospects, you're going to be depressed, and it will be much worse if you can't express that. I hate the term because it's become a buzzword, but it's toxic masculinity.

People try to make women a very specific thing so that we like them.

A real man doesn't know what cellulite is. Until I was 30 I thought cellulite was a building material used for restoring plasterwork in stately homes.

I guess I just do being a man different than some.

I come from a country whose idea of masculinity is quite extreme, and I've grown up around a lot of that energy. I've been part of that a lot. And it's very draining; it's quite tiring trying to be macho.

I think, a lot of times as women, we feel pressure from our parents, our friends: we see our friends get married.