Erica Jong Quotes
The aim of my writing is to utterly remove the distance between author and reader so that the book becomes a sort of semipermeable membrane through which feelings, ideas, nutrients pass.
Quotes to Explore
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All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.
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I've been quite fascinated by the relative insignificance of human existence, the shortness of life. We might as well be a letter in a word in a sentence on a page in a book in a library in a city in one country in this enormous universe! And that kind of fear and insignificance has kept me awake at night.
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I'm not expecting the American literary community to welcome me with open arms. To them I'm just some schmuck kid who wrote some book.
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I like to believe, as a writer, that anybody who isn't a reader yet has just not found the right book.
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I am an author, and like many in my profession, I am also a traveling salesman, going all over in an attempt to persuade people to spend twenty-five dollars on a hardcover book by me.
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Writing does produce a very unique satisfaction. There are times when I'm writing that it's frustrating or appalling or difficult, but when it goes well, it goes really well, and there is a feeling of rightness, like I'm doing the thing I was meant to do, almost in a mystical way, like I'm at an appropriate angle to the world.
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The issue of doing an adaptation of a book is the theater of the mind, and so you always face that.
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There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
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I love writing songs. I love doing my radio show and talking to the fans and listening to what they have to say, but there's a certain responsibility that comes along with being given the gift of music. I take that seriously, but at the same time I try to use it to do something that makes a difference in a positive way.
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For my wrap present, Colin Farrell gave me a first edition book. I got so involved with this character and I was so sad when the movie was over that when I got home and I tried to read the book I got really emotional and I started crying.
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I'm a writer who simply can't know what I'm writing about until the writing lets me discover it. In a sense, my writing process embraces the gapped nature of my memory process, leaping across spaces that represent all I've lost and establishing fresh patterns within all that remains.
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I am an immigrant from Mexico. I came to the United States looking for a landscape where I could explore ideas freely and to test my entrepreneurial spirit.
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While I'm writing, I'm also the first reader, and I want to write a book where I'm excited about what happens next.
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I would wake up really early and go into the hotel bathroom, put a towel over the toilet, and put my laptop there. I'd put my headphones on and just write. And so now when I do writing sessions, and I am stuck on a part, or I can't figure out a chorus, I'm just like, 'Give me a second,' and I'll go to that bathroom.
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Our job as friends, mentors, parents, and writing coaches is not to write anyone's college essay. That's cheating. Plus, it sends a discouraging message to the teenager that he or she can't be trusted with this important assignment. Trust the student to write the essay, but verify that it gets done. Gentle editing and proofreading are allowed.
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As children, we all hold on to the myth of omnipotence. Comics are successful because kids identify with superheroes. They'll read a book or watch a TV programme and say, 'I'm that guy.' And that guy is always the one in control.
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Most films are rooted in a book or a comic strip, but I don't go out there saying I want to do adaptations.
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The problem is too often they are boring, and boring in a meeting happens for the same reason as in a book or movie - when there is not enough compelling tension. Meetings should be intense.
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Many people seem to think that art is a luxury to be imported and tacked on to life. Art springs out of the very stuff that life is made of. Most of our young authors start to write a story and make a few observations from nature to add local color. The results are invariably false and hollow. Art must spring out of the fullness and richness of life.
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There is no harm in anybody thinking that Christ is in bread. The harm is in the expectation of His presence in gunpowder.
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There is a driving force more powerful than steam, electricity and nuclear power: the will.
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There was all this talk when Obama got elected about how we were living in a postracial world. But we're not. Until we get to the point where James Earl Jones can play, say, George Washington, race matters. You wouldn't put a white actor in blackface to play Othello. You shouldn't have a white actor in what amounts to yellowface to play Asian.
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Now that I have kids, I'm probably more overprotective than I've ever been. My wife's nickname for me is 'red alert.' I sometimes check just to see if the kids are breathing. But I try not to be a helicopter parent.
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The aim of my writing is to utterly remove the distance between author and reader so that the book becomes a sort of semipermeable membrane through which feelings, ideas, nutrients pass.
