Dorothy Allison Quotations

The bottom line is I'm writing to save the dead. I'm writing to save the people I have lost, some of whose bodies are still walking around.

my life has been saved over and over again by picking up a book in which someone captured the whole experience of being despised and not dying.

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.

It's important to set challenges that you're not sure you're equal to.

It's fun to tease people about where fiction and life intersect.

I'm still very blunt: If you want to be a writer, get a day job. The fact that I have actually been able to make a living at it is astonishing.

I'll tell you the secret. When you begin with a character, you want to begin by creating a villain.

I have a terrible memory.

And while it is true that I got the best woman in the world, I don't think love saves you.

I tell my students you have an absolute right to write about people you know and love. You do. But the kicker is you have a responsibility to make the characters large enough that you will not have sinned against them.