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Katherine Dunn

Katherine Dunn Quotes

Novelist

Katherine Dunn was an American novelist known for her distinctive narrative style and profound portrayal of marginalized characters. Her works often explore social injustice and the complexities of human existence.

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All Thinking Men People Violence Animal Female Freak Kind Stills Age

Famous Katherine Dunn Quotes

“In our struggle to restrain the violence and contain the damage, we tend to forget that the human capacity for aggression is more than a monstrous defect, that it is also a crucial survival tool.”

Humans Forget Struggle Violence Survival Capacity Tools Damage Crucial Aggression Defects Monstrous Human Capacity

Author:Katherine Dunn

“Defining men as the perpetrators of all violence is a viciously immoral judgment of an entire gender. And defining women as inherently nonviolent condemns us to the equally restrictive role of sweet, meek, and weak.”

Men Roles Violence Sweet Judgment Weak Feminist Gender Immoral Defining Meek Perpetrators

Author:Katherine Dunn

“And while national military forces have historically resisted the full participation of women soldiers, female talent has found plenty of scope in revolutionary and terrorist groups around the planet.”

Found Force Groups Talent Military Planets Female Soldier Terrorist Plenty Revolutionary Participation Scope Military Force Terrorist Groups

Author:Katherine Dunn

“But the idea that women can't take care of themselves still permeates our culture.”

Stills Ideas Care Culture Take Care

Author:Katherine Dunn

“Asked why they wanted to fight, the young women said they enjoyed it, just as some men and boys do.”

Men Said Wanted Young Fighting Boys Enjoyed Young Women Firefighter

Author:Katherine Dunn

“Every doorway, every intersection has a story.”

Stories Doorways Intersections

Author:Katherine Dunn

“I think genetic research is a fascinating and fertile area.”

Thinking Research Areas Fascinating Fertile

Author:Katherine Dunn

“I come from a family of great readers and storytellers.”

Reader Storyteller

Author:Katherine Dunn

“Perhaps the strongest evidence that women have as broad and deep a capacity for physical aggression as men is anecdotal. And as with men, this capacity has expressed itself in acts from the brave to the brutal, the selfless to the senseless.”

Men Evidence Capacity Bravery Brave Strongest Broads Selfless Aggression Brutal

Author:Katherine Dunn

“I know if I were in your generation I would be really tired of seeing Sophia Loren as a sex object.”

Ifs Knows Would Be Sex Vision Seeing Generations Objects Tired Sophia

Author:Katherine Dunn

“Well, it arose out of two long-term concerns - the first being the possibility of genetic manipulation, nature versus nurture, what constitutes how people get to be how they are.”

People Firsts Wells Long Two Term Possibility Concern Long Term Manipulation Nurture Versus Nature Vs Nurture

Author:Katherine Dunn

“Let's just say, the American school of suburban angst is not my cup of tea.”

School Cups Tea Usa Angst Cups Of Tea

Author:Katherine Dunn

“American culture is torn between our long romance with violence and our terror of the devastation wrought by war and crime and environmental havoc.”

Long War Romance Culture Violence Crime Environmental Terror Torn American Culture Devastation Havoc

Author:Katherine Dunn

“But I think everybody should write. I think those people with stories who don't write should be stomped on.”

People Thinking Should Writing Stories

Author:Katherine Dunn

“I have been a believer in the magic of language since, at a very early age, I discovered that some words got me into trouble and others got me out.”

Has Beens Age Language Trouble Magic Believer Culture And Language Language Culture

Author:Katherine Dunn

“Prior to penicillin and medical research, death was an everyday occurrence. It was intimate.”

Research Everyday Medical Intimate Medical Research Penicillin

Author:Katherine Dunn

“This idea that males are physically aggressive and females are not has distinct drawbacks for both sexes.”

Ideas Sex Female Males Aggressive Drawbacks

Author:Katherine Dunn

“It is coincidence, I decide, and I am getting old and batty, thinking the universe revolves around me.”

Thinking Universe Coincidence Getting Old

Book:Geek Love: A Novel

Source: Geek Love: A Novel

“I am here, come closer," the old donkey said with her eyes. "I will mother you.”

Said Eye Mother Healing Her Eyes Donkey

Author:Katherine Dunn

“The more potent, unasked question is how society at large reacts to eager, voluntary violence by females, and to the growing evidence that women can be just as aggressive as men.”

Men Growing Violence Evidence Female Aggressive

Author:Katherine Dunn

“Beside Mama, in my own folding chair, with my feet sticking out in front of me, I thought about my own innards. Just a few months before I'd had no idea whether my reproductive equipment worked. There was no evidence. But that week I had become a full-fledged bleeder and was still absorbed by this first change in myself that I had ever noticed. The click and buzz of my synapses kept making the same connection. If you can change, you can also end. Death had always been a theory to me. Now I knew. The terror hurt good and I nursed it and played it like a loose tooth.”

Ifs Firsts Stills Ideas Ends Hurt My Own Week Feet Fronts Theory Months Evidence Connections Terror Teeth No Idea Chairs Nurse Equipment Mama Clicks Buzz Folding Sticking Out Synapses

Author:Katherine Dunn

“But the animation has become very good, and I think that a movie is not a book, and a book is not a movie.”

Thinking Book Very Good Animation

Author:Katherine Dunn

“Just as a snowflakewent on to feed a puddle that filled a stream and then the river, thepumpkin patch is a gathering of molecules from my old goats, chickens,and cats, feeding the underworld of dirt creatures. And somewhere, myfather's ashes mingle with birds, air, and sea.”

Air Sea Creatures Bird Rivers Cat Filled Streams Chickens Ashes Dirt Feeding Gathering Patches Goats Molecules Underworld Puddles

Author:Katherine Dunn

“In the end I would always pull up with a sense of glory, that loving is the strong side. It's feeble to be an object. What's the point of being loved in return, I'd ask myself.”

Ends Asks Strong Sides Objects Return Glory Being Loved Pull Ups

Book:Geek Love: A Novel

Source: Geek Love: A Novel

“How deep and sticky is the darkness of childhood, how rigid the blades of infant evil, which is unadulterated, unrestrained by the convenient cushions of age and its civilizing anesthesia.”

Age Evil Darkness Childhood Infant Blades Convenient Sticky Cushions Anesthesia

Book:Geek Love: A Novel

Source: Geek Love: A Novel

“What I think happens, and that you have to acknowledge though, is that a director uses a book as a launching pad for his own work and that's always very flattering.”

Thinking Book Use Happens Directors Acknowledge Flattering Pads Launching

Author:Katherine Dunn

“We survive until, by sheer stamina, we escape into the dim innocence of our own adulthood and its forgetfulness.”

Innocence Adulthood Sheer Forgetfulness Stamina

Book:Geek Love: A Novel

Source: Geek Love: A Novel

“I think that it's really important to go away and come back.”

Thinking Important Going Away

Author:Katherine Dunn

“Training of female athletes is so new that the limits of female possibility are still unknown.”

Stills Possibility Limits Training Female Athlete Female Athlete

Author:Katherine Dunn

“Oh, of course, I always feel unconfident.”

Author:Katherine Dunn

About the Author

Born: October 24, 1945
Died: May 11, 2016
Known for: Novelist
Quotes: 80

Related Topics

Thinking Men People Violence Animal Female Freak Kind Stills Age

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Geek Love: A NovelRelated source material

Geek LoveRelated source material

Misfits of Love: Healing Conversations in the BarnyardRelated source material

The Pilo Family CircusRelated source material

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