Dorothy Allison

“I think I would have died if there hadn't been the women's movement.”

“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.”

“I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft.”

“When I was growing up, I always read horror books, while my sister read romance novels.”

“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.”

“Beauty, my first girlfriend said to me, is that inner quality often associated with great amounts of leisure time.”

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

“I did not imagine anyone reading my rambling, ranting stories. I was writing for myself, trying to shape my life outside my terrors and helplessness, to make it visible and real in a tangible way, in the way other people's seemed real -- the lives I had read about in books.”

“Every kid I meet who's a reader has got something like that, their fantasy world. And science fiction is the best, especially for girls because it's the one place where you can do the forbidden.”

“It ain't that you get religion. Religion gets you and then milks you dry. Won't let you drink a little whiskey. Won't let you make no fat-assed girls grin and giggle. Won't let you do a damn thing except work for what you'll get in the hearafter. I live in the here and now.”