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Erica Jong Quotes | Quotes said by Erica Jong

  • Erica Jong Quote #1

    ...filled her memory bank with shiny coins.

  • Erica Jong Quote #2

    ...readers who think I have answers when all I have are a few pointed questions...

  • Erica Jong Quote #3

    A person's not free if their freedom has to be given.

  • Erica Jong Quote #4

    Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.

  • Erica Jong Quote #5

    All writing problems are psychological problems. Blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged. If you imagine the world listening, you'll never write a line. That's why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.

  • Erica Jong Quote #6

    And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

  • Erica Jong Quote #7

    And what is laughter anyway? Changing the angle of vision.

  • Erica Jong Quote #8

    Any system was a straightjacket if you insisted on adhering to it so totally and humorlessly.

  • Erica Jong Quote #9

    Beware of books. They are more than innocent assemblages of paper and ink and string and glue. If they are any good, they have the spirit of the author within. Authors are rogues and ruffians and easy lays. They are gluttons for sweets and savories. They devour life and always want more. They have sap, spirit, sex. Books are panderers. The Jews are not wrong to worship books. A real book has pheromones and sprouts grass through its cover.

  • Erica Jong Quote #10

    Blush like you mean it

  • Erica Jong Quote #11

    But at the bottom of all the gloom, there is a sense that we are responsible for each other -- if not for each other's happiness. There is empathy, admiration, respect for the other's intelligence and honesty.

  • Erica Jong Quote #12

    But we [women] are only at the beginning [of revamping feminism]. And our strictures on each other prove this. Our enforcement of thinness, of non-sexuality, of 'good' feminism versus 'bad' feminism, are proofs of our being at the beginning, not the end of a process. That younger feminists are embracing their sexuality is a sign of hope -- a sign that women's lives will some day be less constricted, less fearful of the dark side of creativity (to which Eros provides the key). If that happens, we will at least have the full gamut of inspiration so long denied us. We will have access to all parts of ourselves -- all the animals within us, from wolf to lamb. When we learn to love all the animals within us, we will know how to make men love them too.

  • Erica Jong Quote #13

    Children are no antidote to loneliness.

  • Erica Jong Quote #14

    Critics write out of intellectual exercise, not poets. Poets write straight from the heart.

  • Erica Jong Quote #15

    Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

  • Erica Jong Quote #16

    Even when we are screaming and throwing things, we are friends. Who is the man and who is the woman? Sometimes neither of us knows. The marriage is androgynous -- like the closest friendships. It will keep.

  • Erica Jong Quote #17

    Every decision I have made - from changing jobs, to changing partners, to changing homes - has been taken with trepidation. I have not ceased being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me. I have accepted fear as a part of life, specifically the fear of change, the fear of the unknown, and I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back, turn back, you'll die if you venture too far... In the past several years I have learned, in short, to trust myself. Not to eradicate fear but to go on in spite of fear. Not to become insensitive to distinguished critics but to follow my own writer's instinct. My job is not to paralyze myself by anticipating judgment but to do the best that I can and let judgment fall where it may. The difference between the woman who is writing this essay and the college girl sitting in her creative writing class in 1961 is mostly a matter of nerve and daring - the nerve to trust my own instincts and the daring to be a fool. No one ever found wisdom without being a fool.

  • Erica Jong Quote #18

    Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads.

  • Erica Jong Quote #19

    Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.

  • Erica Jong Quote #20

    Fame means millions of people have the wrong idea of who you are.

  • Erica Jong Quote #21

    Fame turns out to be a powerful instrument of grace because it humbles its chosen victims in a hurry. You sail into it, your canvas swelled with grandiosity, and when your fifteen minutes are over and you are becalmed, you realize that grandiosity cannot take you where you need to go.
    Only then do you learn to row like hell, asking God for the strength to stay afloat.

  • Erica Jong Quote #22

    Famous people complain about fame, but they never want to give it back, myself included.

  • Erica Jong Quote #23

    Generations of women have sacrificed their lives to become their mothers. But we do not have that luxury any more. The world has changed too much to let us have the lives our mothers had. And we can no longer afford the guilt we feel at not being our mothers. We cannot afford any guilt that pulls us back to the past. We have to grow up, whether we want to or not. We have to stop blaming men and mothers and seize every second of our lives with passion. We can no longer afford to waste our creativity. We cannot afford spiritual laziness.

  • Erica Jong Quote #24

    How did I get to be a grown-up? At times, I find myself still sitting on the hillside, plotting revenge against the adult world.

  • Erica Jong Quote #25

    Husband and wife have no time left to spend together. Marriage took away our one reason for getting married.

  • Erica Jong Quote #26

    I believe that women should live for love, for motherhood and for intellect, and I believe we shouldn't have to choose. And I believe that's always been difficult for women, to express themselves intellectually, maternally, and passionately.

  • Erica Jong Quote #27

    I could become servile, cloying, saccharinely sweet: the whole package of lies that passes in the world as femininity.

  • Erica Jong Quote #28

    I guess the thing that I'm most proud of is that I kept on writing poetry. I understand that poetry is sort of the source of everything I do. It's the source of my creativity.

  • Erica Jong Quote #29

    I have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back.

  • Erica Jong Quote #30

    I have accepted fear as part of life – specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back....

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