Erica Jong Quotes
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Driving me away is easier than saying goodbye.
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Women are individuals in parenting, and why not?
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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.
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Pain is not love. Love flowers; love gives without taking; love is serene and calm.
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We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.
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As long as I'm facing the right direction, it doesn't matter the size of my steps.
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I think I've become more cynical about sex. Meaning, I don't think sex in and of itself leads to an epiphany.
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Every time I catch myself saying, "Oh no, you shouldn't try that," I think, "Yes, I should."
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It is a sad paradox that when male authors impersonate women ... they are said to be dealing with 'cosmic, major concerns' - but when we impersonate ourselves we are said to be writing 'women's fiction' or 'women's poetry.
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Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.
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Not everybody has to be a parent. In fact, in an overpopulated world where our resources are shrinking, it would be wonderful if people who didn't want children felt free to say so. In the 1970s, there was more tolerance for the idea that not everybody needs to be a biological parent.
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Keeping a journal implies hope.
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There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna and I'd been treated by at least six of them. And married a seventh.
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Henry Miller was such a scribomaniac that even when he lived in the same house as Lawrence Durrell they often exchanged letters. For most of his life, Henry wrote literally dozens of letters a day to people he could have easily engaged in conversation - and did. The writing process, in short, was essential. As it is to all real writers, writing was life and breath to him. He put out words as a tree puts out leaves.
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it is not unusual to hate great writers before we learn to love them. Because they have created something that did not yet exist, they must also create their audience. Sometimes the audience is not yet ready. Sometimes it has yet to be born.
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No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.
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Where is Hollywood located? Chiefly between the ears. In that part of the American brain lately vacated by God.
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I was surprised by my daughter's generation and how they were rebelling against the '70s idea that sex was perfect and it should be sought.
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we need poetry most at those moments when life astounds us with losses, gains, or celebrations. We need it most when we are most hurt, most happy, most downcast, most jubilant. Poetry is the language we speak in times of greatest need. And the fact that it is an endangered species in our culture tells us that we are in deep trouble.
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Friends love misery... our misery is what endears us to our friends.
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The sexuality doesn't end. It really doesn't. You're sexual your whole life, if you're a sexual person.
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It's horrible getting older. I mean, it's wonderful because you see the circles of life get completed. But it's horrible losing your looks.
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Mediocre prose might be read as an escape, might be spoken on television by actors, or mouthed in movies. But mediocre poetry did not exist at all. If poetry wasn't good, it wasn't poetry. It was that simple.
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Everyone's a little crazy when you get inside their head... it's only a matter of degree.