WIST

Fiction never exceeds the reach of the writer’s courage.

Dorothy Allison (b. 1949) American writer and lesbian feminist
Skin: Talking About Sex, Class & Literature, ch. 22 (1994)

Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning.

Dorothy Allison (b. 1949) American writer and lesbian feminist
Skin, ch. 18 (1994)

The horror of class stratification, racism, and prejudice is that some people begin to believe that the security of their families and communities depends on the oppression of others, that for some to have good lives there must be others whose lives are truncated and brutal.

Dorothy Allison (b. 1949) American writer and lesbian feminist
Skin, ch. 2 (1994)

… [S]uffering does not ennoble. It destroys. To resist destruction, self-hatred, or lifelong hopelessness, we have to throw off the conditioning of being despised, the fear of becoming the they that is talked about so dismissively, to refuse lying myths and easy moralities, to see ourselves as human, flawed, and extraordinary. All of us — extraordinary.

Dorothy Allison (b. 1949) American writer and lesbian feminist
Skin, ch. 2 (1994).