Teenagers are free verse walking around on two legs. Dorothy Allison More Quotes by Dorothy Allison More Quotes From Dorothy Allison Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that if we are not beautiful to each other, we cannot know beauty in any form. Dorothy Allison threebeautifultwo Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I'd rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me. Dorothy Allison nakedthreetwo I need you to do more than survive. As writers, as revolutionaries, tell the truth, your truth in your own way. Do not buy into their system of censorship, imagining that if you drop this character or hide that emotion, you can slide through their blockades. Do not eat your heart out in the hope of pleasing them. Dorothy Allison heartcharacterneeds Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies. Dorothy Allison deceittogetherlying Class, race, sexuality, gender and all other categories by which we categorize and dismiss each other need to be excavated from the inside. Dorothy Allison raceclassneeds Women lose their lives not knowing they can do something different...I claimed myself and remade my life. Only when I knew I belonged to myself completely did I become capable of giving myself to another, of finding joy in desire, pleasure in our love, power in this body no one else owns. Dorothy Allison knowingjoygiving 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. Dorothy Allison good-lifeclassbelieve Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is the way you can both hate and love something you are not sure you understand. Dorothy Allison threehatetwo Write the story that you were always afraid to tell. I swear to you that there is magic in it, and if you show yourself naked for me, I'll be naked for you. It will be our covenant. Dorothy Allison nakedmagicwriting I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft. Dorothy Allison craftsstrongfeelings I have wanted everything as a writer and a woman, but most of all a world changed utterly by my revelations. Dorothy Allison revelationschangeworld I am the only one who can tell the story of my life and say what it means. Dorothy Allison story-of-my-lifestoriesmean Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning. Dorothy Allison writinglyingfiction What's the best thing you can do for your writing? Construct a boring life. Dorothy Allison libertarianboringwriting ... suffering does not ennoble. It destroys. To resist destruction, self-hatred, or lifelong hopelessness, we have to throw off the conditioning of being despised, the fear of becoming the they that is talked about so dismissively, to refuse lying myths and easy moralities, to see ourselves as human, flawed, and extraordinary. All of us extraordinary Dorothy Allison hatredselflying Beauty, my first girlfriend said to me, is that inner quality often associated with great amounts of leisure time. Dorothy Allison leisurequalitygirlfriend I want hard stories, I demand them from myself. Hard stories are worth the difficulty. It seems to me the only way I have forgiven anything, understood anything, is through that process of opening up to my own terror and pain and reexamining it, re-creating it in the story, and making it something different, making it meaningful - even if the meaning is only in the act of the telling. Dorothy Allison opening-uppainmeaningful If I could have found what I needed at thirteen, I would not have lost so much of my life chasing vindication or death. Give some child, some thirteen-year old, the hope of the remade life. Tell the truth. Write the story that you were always afraid to tell. I swear to you there is magic in it. Dorothy Allison writingchildrenyears It's fun to tease people about where fiction and life intersect. Dorothy Allison funpeoplefiction There is a place where we are always alone with our own mortality, where we must simply have something greater than ourselves to hold onto-God or history or politics or literature or a belief in the healing power of love, or even righteous anger.... A reason to believe, a way to take the world by the throat and insist that there is more to this life than we have ever imagined. Dorothy Allison literaturehealingbelieve
