Dorothy Allison

I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft.

— Dorothy Allison

“I do not want to claim a safe and comfortable life for myself that is purchased at the cost of some other…

— Dorothy Allison

“Let me tell you a story. I tell stories to prove I was meant to survive, knowing it is not true.”

— Dorothy Allison

“People pay for that they do, and still more, for what they have allowed themselves to become. And the pay for it…

— Dorothy Allison

“I say, “Talk to me. Tell me who you are, what you want, what you’ve never had, the story you’ve always been…

— Dorothy Allison

People begin to write in order to create what they have not found and, a little bit, to give something back.

— Dorothy Allison

If somebody gave you several thousand dollars and nothin' to do but write, would you be a writer then? Would you tell…

— Dorothy Allison

That was what gospel was meant to do - make you hate and love yourself at the same time, make you ashamed…

— Dorothy Allison

Women lose their lives not knowing they can do something different..." from Two or Three Things i Know For Sure

— Dorothy Allison

“loved the way it used to be and I hate the fact that it’s gone. I’ve not become celibate, or silly, or…

— Dorothy Allison

My heart broke all over again. I wanted my life back, my mama, but I knew I would never have that. The…

— Dorothy Allison

I think I would have died if there hadn't been the women's movement. It gave me a vision that I could do…

— Dorothy Allison

Behind my carefully buttoned collar is my nakedness, the struggle to find clean clothes, food, meaning, and money. Behind sex is rage,…

— Dorothy Allison

I put on the page a third look at what I've seen in life - the reinvented experience of a cross-eyed working-class…

— Dorothy Allison

Women lose their lives not knowing they can do something different...I claimed myself and remade my life. Only when I knew I…

— Dorothy Allison

“I did not imagine anyone reading my rambling, ranting stories. I was writing for myself, trying to shape my life outside my…

— Dorothy Allison

“Every time I sit down to write, I have a great fear that anything I write will reveal me as the monster…

— Dorothy Allison

“It was a story to tell myself, a promise. Saying out loud, "You're never going to touch me again" - that was…

— Dorothy Allison

“Moving had no season, was all seasons, crossed time like a train with no schedule. We moved so often our mail never…

— Dorothy Allison

“I passed whole portions of my life—days, months, years—in pure directed progress, getting up every morning and setting to work, working so…

— Dorothy Allison

“It is so hard to be a girl and want what you have never had. To be a child and want what…

— Dorothy Allison

“I have lived my life in pursuit of the remade world... I believe in truth. I believe in truth denied any use…

— Dorothy Allison

“The horror of class stratification, racism, and prejudice is that some people begin to believe that the security of their families and…

— Dorothy Allison

“Anney makes the best gravy in the county, the sweetest biscuits, and puts just enough vinegar in those greens. Glenn nodded, though…

— Dorothy Allison

I wanted to start over completely, to begin again as new people with nothing of the past left over. I wanted to…

— Dorothy Allison

“I grew up poor, hated, the victim of physical, emotional, and sexual violence, and I know that suffering does not ennoble. It…

— Dorothy Allison

I was born trash in a land where the people all believe themselves natural aristocrats.

— Dorothy Allison

Behind the story I tell is the one I don't...Behind the story you hear is the one I wish I could make…

— Dorothy Allison

The hardest thing to teach young writers is that it's wonderful to tell your truth. And that's what you should do. But…

— Dorothy Allison

If you write a book that's as powerful and successful as 'Bastard,' there's a strong desire to prove there's something else.

— Dorothy Allison

I'm still very blunt: If you want to be a writer, get a day job. The fact that I have actually been…

— Dorothy Allison

“Essential political decisions are made not once, but again and again in a variety of situations, always against that pressure to compromise,…

— Dorothy Allison

“What I loved were books that heightened the sense of life’s wonders without denying the complexity and horror that sometimes accompanied those…

— Dorothy Allison

The only magic we have is what we make in ourselves, the muscles we build up on the inside, the sense of…

— Dorothy Allison

“I wanted her to love me enough to leave him, to pack us up and take us away from him, to kill…

— Dorothy Allison

One of the strengths I derive from my class background is that I am accustomed to contempt.

— Dorothy Allison

“I shook my head once and caught her glance, the wise and sullen look of a not quite adolescent girl who knew…

— Dorothy Allison

Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that if we are not beautiful to each other,…

— Dorothy Allison

Babies change things, open doors you thought were shut, close others. Make you into something you never been.

— Dorothy Allison

“The holy act of sex, my sex, done in your name, done for the only, the best reason. Because we want it.”

— Dorothy Allison