... suffering does not ennoble. It destroys. To resist destruction, self-hatred, or lifelong hopelessness, we have to throw off the conditioning of b…

- Dorothy Allison

Why write stories? To join the conversation.

- 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.

- Dorothy Allison

The horror of class stratification, racism, and prejudice is that some people begin to believe that the security of their families and communities de…

- Dorothy Allison

Write the story that you were always afraid to tell. I swear to you that there is magic in it, and if you show yourself naked for me, I'll be naked f…

- Dorothy Allison

I want hard stories, I demand them from myself. Hard stories are worth the difficulty. It seems to me the only way I have forgiven anything, understo…

- Dorothy Allison

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…

- Dorothy Allison

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

The only magic we have is what we make in ourselves, the muscles we build up on the inside, the sense of belief we create from nothing.

- Dorothy Allison