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Dorothy Allison

Dorothy Allison Quotes

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Famous Dorothy Allison Quotes

“And of course these days I feel like there is a nation of us - displaced southerners and children of the working class. We listen to Steve Earle, Mary J. Blige, and k.d. lang. We devour paperback novels and tell evil mean stories, value stubbornness above patience and a sense of humor more than a college education. We claim our heritage with a full appreciation of how often it has been disdained. And let me promise you, you do not want to make us angry.”

WantFeelsMeanChildrenHas BeensStoriesValuesCoursesEvilNationsClassNovelCollegePromiseLet MeClaimsAngryAppreciationThese DaysSense Of HumorHeritageMaryWorking ClassStubbornnessCollege EducationSouthernerMary J Blige
Book:Trash
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“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.”

PeopleFeelsYearsHumansStoriesBodyPainRememberFallAnimalKnownTakenWallConvincedDamageBricksFalling DownOne WomanNo PainUnbreakableBrick Wall
Author:Dorothy Allison
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“I wanted to start over completely, to begin again as new people with nothing of the past left over. I wanted to run away from who we had been seen to be, who we had been... It's the first thing I think of when trouble comes - the geographic solution. Change your name, leave town, disappear, make yourself over. What hides behind that impulse is the conviction that the life you have lived, the person you are, is valueless, better off abandoned, that running away is easier than trying to change things, that change itself is not possible.”

PeopleThinkingTryingFirstsPersonsRunningWantedPastNamesLeftBehindsTroubleEasierSolutionsTownsConvictionDisappearImpulseAbandonedRunning AwayBetter OffStarting OverBegin AgainTrying To ChangeValueless
Author:Dorothy Allison
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“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.”

DreamMotherPerfectPiecesAirFoodTasteSingingPerfectionCookingHungerTeethMeatMealsAweCulinaryMilkSplitsRestlessCornBeansRipeSnapsTomatoesOne PieceCrispsAwe InspiringGravyBest FoodPerfect Food
Book:Bastard Out of Carolina: A Novel
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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.”

MenBelieveMeanChildrenHas BeensMadeDifferentCan DoLosesKnowingCrazyBrokenShapesNot KnowingCan Do Something
Book:Two Or Three Things I Know for Sure
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“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, understood anything, is through that process of opening up to my own terror and pain and reexamining it, re-creating it in the story, and making it something different, making it meaningful - even if the meaning is only in the act of the telling.”

IfsWayWantDifferentHardStoriesSeemsPainProcessMy OwnDemandCreatingUnderstoodDifficultyTerrorMeaningfulOpeningForgivenOpening Up
Author:Dorothy Allison
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“There is a place where we are always alone with our own mortality, where we must simply have something greater than ourselves to hold onto-God or history or politics or literature or a belief in the healing power of love, or even righteous anger.... A reason to believe, a way to take the world by the throat and insist that there is more to this life than we have ever imagined.”

WorldWayBelieveReasonLiteratureBeliefHealingGreaterThis LifeMortalityThroatRighteousPower Of LoveAlways AloneRighteous Anger
Book:Skin: Talking About Sex, Class, and Literature
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