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At fifty the madwoman in the attic breaks loose, stomps down the stairs, and sets fire to the house. She won't be imprisoned anymore.
Erica Jong -
Beware the Lure of a handsome Face, the all too ready Assumption that the lovely Façade must needs have lovely Chambers within; for as 'tis with Great Houses, so, too, with Great Men.
Erica Jong
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All natural disasters are comforting because they reaffirm our impotence, in which, otherwise, we might stop believing. At times it is strangely sedative to know the extent of your own powerlessness.
Erica Jong -
What was time but a convention, a habit of mind, a custom of dress?
Erica Jong -
Poetry is what we turn to in the most emotional moments of our life - when a beloved friend dies, when a baby is born or when we fall in love.
Erica Jong -
Beware of the man who praises women's liberation; he is about to quit his job.
Erica Jong -
I'm interested in what happens to people when they get into that publicity machine. We tend to think things have changed, but there's still a deep sexism underlying the way women are treated publicly.
Erica Jong -
Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.
Erica Jong
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It's important to know what you're going to spend your life on, and the only way you're going to find that is by connecting with the force inside yourself.
Erica Jong -
It is the nature of those books we call classics to wait patiently on the shelf for us to grow into them.
Erica Jong -
When I'm sitting at the desk not being able to write line one, it's silence and despair! It's not so easy to put the pen to the legal pad or type the first sentence on the computer screen.
Erica Jong -
The only people worth writing about are those about whom the last word cannot be said.
Erica Jong -
Court, in our society, is often the last resort of stubbornness.
Erica Jong -
You must have a certain amount of maturity to be a poet. Seldom do sixteen-year-olds know themselves well enough.
Erica Jong
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My reaction to porno films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.
Erica Jong -
If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it's because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that's the most revolutionary insight of all.
Erica Jong -
I have forgotten my rave reviews and memorized my vicious ones - like most writers.
Erica Jong -
There is a rhythm to the ending of a marriage just like the rhythm of a courtship, only backward.
Erica Jong -
I see that the greatest thing about getting older is how your judgment changes and how you come to understand the cycles of life. And you keep having these amazing flashes of understanding.
Erica Jong -
biography is essentially a collaborative art, the latest biographer collaborating with all those who wrote earlier.
Erica Jong
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The absolute bedrock of our independence is having control over our own bodies. You cannot be independent if the government or someone else says whether or not you can use birth control. Unless you're in charge of your body, you're not in charge of anything. I think that's really the bottom line of feminism.
Erica Jong -
I know so many women in their fifties, sixties and seventies who delight in being on their own. It's amazing. They don't see any stigma attached to it. We don't need a man to prove our identity anymore.
Erica Jong -
Women who bear children before they establish serious habits of work, may never establish them at all.
Erica Jong -
Feminism is really the right of women to be full human beings and to not be defined only by their childbearing function. Feminism is really the right of women to be human beings. That's it, yet that's so frightening to a lot of people. A full human being wants satisfying work and love. A full human being is entitled to both, and is not simply defined by only one aspect of her being.
Erica Jong