Quote

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.

Dorothy Allison

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Dorothy Allison
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: April 11
Feminist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Greenville
South Carolina
Facts
Stills
Blunt
Still
Astonishing
Able
Writer
Make
Actually
Fact
Living
Jobs

More quotes by Dorothy Allison

Image
He never said Don't tell your mama. He never had to say it. I did not know how to tell anyone what I felt, what scared me and shamed me... (109)
Dorothy Allison
Image
Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning.
Dorothy Allison
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, and it gave me an understanding that I wasn't a monster, or sport, or a betrayer of my family.
Dorothy Allison
Image
Teenagers are free verse walking around on two legs.
Dorothy Allison
Image
I claimed myself and remade my life.
Dorothy Allison
Image
People begin to write in order to create what they have not found and, a little bit, to give something back.
Dorothy Allison
Image
fiction is the great lie that tells the truth
Dorothy Allison
Image
What's the best thing you can do for your writing? Construct a boring life.
Dorothy Allison
Image
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
Image
stories are the one sure way I know to touch the heart and change the world.
Dorothy Allison
Image
Behind my carefully buttoned collar is my nakedness, the struggle to find clean clothes, food, meaning, and money. Behind sex is rage, behind anger is love, behind this moment is silence, years of silence.
Dorothy Allison
Image
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
Image
One of the strengths I derive from my class background is that I am accustomed to contempt.
Dorothy Allison
Image
Life ain't the movies.
Dorothy Allison
Image
Writing is the only way I know to demand justice from an uncaring universe.
Dorothy Allison
Image
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
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, the one piece of meat, the exact taste of buttery corn, tomatoes so ripe they split and sweeten the air, beans so crisp they snap between the teeth, gravy like mother's milk singing to your bloodstream.
Dorothy Allison
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 you don't.
Dorothy Allison
Image
Gravy is the simplest, tastiest, most memory-laden dish I know how to make: a little flour, salt and pepper, crispy bits of whatever meat anchored the meal, a couple of cups of water or milk and slow stirring to break up lumps.
Dorothy Allison
Image
And while it is true that I got the best woman in the world, I don't think love saves you.
Dorothy Allison