“Both of us had grown up believing that being beaten is normal, that being backhanded is ordinary, that being called names is a regular part of life. That everyone does it, that they just don’t talk about it in public.” — Dorothy Allison Copy Share Image
she got a reputation for an easy smile and a sharp tongue, and using one to balance the other, she seemed friendly but distant — Dorothy Allison Copy Share Image
“Simple answers, reductionist politics, are the most prone to compromise, to saying we’re addressing the essential issue and all that other stuff can slide.… — Dorothy Allison Copy Share Image
People don't do right because of the fear of God or love of him. You do right because the world doesn't make sense if… — Dorothy Allison Copy Share Image
“I had to say to her that it isn’t just men, and it isn’t just men “like that.” I had to talk to her about the women I had found after I left home, women who breathed out hatred as steadily as the worst man we had ever known. I had to say that the world is a bigger, meaner,… — Dorothy Allison Copy Share
“Entitlement, I have told them, is a matter of feeling like we rather than they.” — Dorothy Allison Copy Share Image
“Love was something I would not have to worry about - the whole mystery of love, heartbreak songs, and family legends. Women who pined,… — Dorothy Allison Copy Share Image
“Behind the story I tell is the one I don't. Behind the story you hear is the one I wish I could make you… — Dorothy Allison Copy Share Image
Hunger makes you restless. you dream about food - not just any food, but perfect food, the best food, magical meals, famous and awe-inspiring,… — Dorothy Allison Copy Share Image
I think I would have died if there hadn't been the women's movement. It gave me a vision that I could do something different,… — Dorothy Allison Copy Share Image
People begin to write in order to create what they have not found and, a little bit, to give something back. — Dorothy Allison Copy Share Image
The hardest thing to teach young writers is that it's wonderful to tell your truth. And that's what you should do. But it damn… — Dorothy Allison Copy Share Image
“The horror of class stratification, racism, and prejudice is that some people begin to believe that the security of their families and communities depends on the oppression of others, that for some to have good lives there must be others whose lives are truncated and brutal. It is a belief that dominates this culture. It is what makes the poor… — Dorothy Allison Copy Share
