When I was growing up, I always read horror books, while my sister read romance novels. Dorothy Allison More Quotes by Dorothy Allison More Quotes From Dorothy Allison I claimed myself and remade my life. Dorothy Allison I think I would have died if there hadn't been the women's movement. Dorothy Allison diedmovementthinking Two or three things I know, two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that to go on living I have to tell stories, that stories are the one sure way I know to touch the heart and change the world Dorothy Allison threehearttwo One of the strengths I derive from my class background is that I am accustomed to contempt. Dorothy Allison contemptbackgroundsclass It ain't that you get religion. Religion gets you and then milks you dry. Won't let you drink a little whiskey. Won't let you make no fat-assed girls grin and giggle. Won't let you do a damn thing except work for what you'll get in the hearafter. I live in the here and now. Dorothy Allison drygirllittles Delia picked at the raw sores of her conscience...Drunk or sober, Delia lived in the small town in her heart, ignoring the world in which all her love had turned to grief. Dorothy Allison drunkgriefheart My heart broke all over again. I wanted my life back, my mama, but I knew I would never have that. The child I had been was gone with the child she had been. We were new people, and we didn't know each other anymore. I shook my head desperately. Dorothy Allison heartchildrenpeople That was what gospel was meant to do - make you hate and love yourself at the same time, make you ashamed and glorified. Dorothy Allison love-yourselfand-lovehate Don't go taking that gospel stuff seriously. It's nice to clean you out now and then, but it ain't for real. It's like bad whiskey. Run through you fast and leave you with pain. Dorothy Allison painnicerunning I was born trash in a land where the people all believe themselves natural aristocrats. Dorothy Allison landbelievepeople fiction is the great lie that tells the truth Dorothy Allison telling-the-truthlyingfiction I wanted her to to go on talking and understand without me saying anything. I wanted her to love me enough to leave him, to pack us up and take us away from him, to kill him if need be. (107) Dorothy Allison goes-ontalkingneeds The worst thing in the world was the way I felt when I wanted us to be like the families in the books in the library, when I just wanted Daddy Glen to love me like the father in Robinson Crusoe. (209) Dorothy Allison daddyfatherbook 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 you don't. Dorothy Allison make-sensepeopleworld I did things I did not understand for reasons I could not begin to explain just to be in motion, to be trying to do something, change something in a world I wanted desperately to make over but could not imagine for myself. Dorothy Allison imaginetryingworld I wanted to start over completely, to begin again as new people with nothing of the past left over. I wanted to run away from who we had been seen to be, who we had been... It's the first thing I think of when trouble comes - the geographic solution. Change your name, leave town, disappear, make yourself over. What hides behind that impulse is the conviction that the life you have lived, the person you are, is valueless, better off abandoned, that running away is easier than trying to change things, that change itself is not possible. Dorothy Allison runningpastthinking For years and years, I convinced myself that I was unbreakable, an animal with an animal strength or something not human at all. Me, I told people, I take damage like a wall, a brick wall that never falls down, never feels anything, never flinches or remembers. I am one woman but I carry in my body all the stories I have ever been told, women I have known, women who have taken damage until they tell themselves they can feel no pain at all. Dorothy Allison wallpainfall Twenty years after we had left so fierce and proud, we were all right back where we had started, yoked to each other and the same old drama. Dorothy Allison twentiesdramayears Piece by piece, my mother is being stolen from me. Dorothy Allison stolenpiecesmother Change, when it comes, cracks everything open. Dorothy Allison allisoncrackshealing
