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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

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

More quotes by Dorothy Allison

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I claimed myself and remade my life.
Dorothy Allison
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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
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Women lose their lives not knowing they can do something different. Men eat themselves up believing they have to be the thing they have been made. Children go crazy. Really, even children go crazy, believing the shape of the life they must live is as small and mean and broken as they are told.
Dorothy Allison
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I fell into shame like a suicide throws herself into a river. (253)
Dorothy Allison
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And while it is true that I got the best woman in the world, I don't think love saves you.
Dorothy Allison
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People begin to write in order to create what they have not found and, a little bit, to give something back.
Dorothy Allison
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I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft.
Dorothy Allison
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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
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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
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It's fun to tease people about where fiction and life intersect.
Dorothy Allison
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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
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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
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I have a terrible memory.
Dorothy Allison
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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
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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
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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
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stories are the one sure way I know to touch the heart and change the world.
Dorothy Allison
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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
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What's the best thing you can do for your writing? Construct a boring life.
Dorothy Allison
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It's important to set challenges that you're not sure you're equal to.
Dorothy Allison