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Dorothy Allison

Dorothy Allison Quotes

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Famous Dorothy Allison Quotes

“If I could have found what I needed at thirteen, I would not have lost so much of my life chasing vindication or death. Give some child, some thirteen-year old, the hope of the remade life. Tell the truth. Write the story that you were always afraid to tell. I swear to you there is magic in it.”

IfsGivingWritingYearsChildrenStoriesFoundLostMagicNeededIf I CouldTelling The TruthSwearChasingThirteenVindicationThirteen Year Olds
Book:Skin: Talking About Sex, Class, and Literature
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“I told her, Don't touch me that way. Don't come at me with that sour-cream smile. Come at me as if I were worth your life - the life we make together. Take me like a turtle whose shell must be cracked, whose heart is ice, who needs your heat. Love me like a warrior, sweat up to your earlobes and all your hope between your teeth. Love me so I know I am at least as important as anything you have ever wanted.”

IfsKnowsWayNeedsHeartImportantWantedTogetherTeethIceWarriorHeatTake MeSweatShellsCreamCrackedSourTurtlesTouch Me
Author:Dorothy Allison
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“I need you to do more than survive. As writers, as revolutionaries, tell the truth, your truth in your own way. Do not buy into their system of censorship, imagining that if you drop this character or hide that emotion, you can slide through their blockades. Do not eat your heart out in the hope of pleasing them.”

IfsWayNeedsHeartCharacterEmotionRevolutionaryTelling The TruthCensorshipNeed YouSlidesI Need YouBlockadesEat Your Heart
Book:Skin: Talking About Sex, Class, and Literature
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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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