Dorothy Allison

My assumption when I began writing was that you were never going to make any money. And you were never going to reach everyone. Therefore you had to do as much as you could in the service of something you genuinely believed in. And if you do that and people get upset, well, there you go. ”

My sisters, we didn't like each other as kids. We were scared of each other, I think, but we've grown to love each other. It was fun to write about these sisters who were supposed to hate each other but really don't. ”

I tell my students you have an absolute right to write about people you know and love. You do. But the kicker is you have a responsibility to make the characters large enough that you will not have sinned against them. ”

I'll tell you the secret. When you begin with a character, you want to begin by creating a villain. ”

It's fun to tease people about where fiction and life intersect. ”

I was born in 1949, and by the time I was 10, I figured out that my hope chest was not aimed in the same direction everybody else's was. And that life was going to be very, very complicated. And that I could either be provocative and declamatory, or shy, retiring and scared. ”

I'm still very blunt: If you want to be a writer, get a day job. The fact that I have actually been able to make a living at it is astonishing. ”

The hardest thing to teach young writers is that it's wonderful to tell your truth. And that's what you should do. But it damn well better be beautiful. ”

And while it is true that I got the best woman in the world, I don't think love saves you. ”

My son, Wolf, was born when I was past 40 and the author of a best-selling novel. That means he has grown up a middle-class child - one who sometimes asks me for stories of my childhood but knows nothing of what it means to grow up poor and afraid. I have worked to make sure of that. ”