213 Quotes by Dorothy Allison

Class, race, sexuality, gender and all other categories by which we categorize and dismiss each other need to be excavated from the inside.

No one knew she cried in the night for Lyle and her lost happiness, that under that biscuit crust exterior she was all butter grief and hunger.

❝ fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies into meaning.❞

When my mama was twenty-five she already had an old woman's hands, and I feared them. I did not know then what it was that scared me so. I've come to understand since that it was the thought of her growing old, of her dying and leaving me alone. I feared those brown spots, those wrinkles and cracks that lined her wrists, ankles, and the soft shadowed sides of her eyes.

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.

I think it's wonderful that people in pickup trucks are buying two flats of dog food and a copy of 'Bastard.' I want my view of the world to be right up there next to gallon boxes of Tide.

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

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.

I was born in 1949, and by the time I was 10, I figured out that my hope chest was not aimed in the same direction everybody else's was. And that life was going to be very, very complicated. And that I could either be provocative and declamatory, or shy, retiring and scared.