Erica Jong Quotes
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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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Blocks usually stem from fear of being judged. If you imagine the world is listening, you'll never write a line.
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Souls have neither Sex nor Colour.
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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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Men and women, women and men. It will never work.
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In a bad marriage, friends are the invisible glue. If we have enough friends, we may go on for years, intending to leave, talking about leaving -instead of actually getting up and leaving.
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I myself hate that old Hemingwayesque paradigm of the writer as prizefighter and I have tried hard to create an alternate one for myself. When Anne Sexton admonished me, "We are all writing God's poem," I took it to mean there should be no competition between writers because we are all involved in a common project, a common prayer. But to Gore's and Norman's generation, particularly those male writers who served in the second world war, the prizefighter paradigm remains.
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Great loves have legs and wings. They are substantial. They do not dissapate so easily... Great loves have staying power. Or so I told myself.
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I don't cook. My mother didn't cook. My daughter doesn't cook.
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I have a very sensitive nose. I identify with dogs. I understand the world through my nose.
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If you apologize for something that isn't your fault in the first place, you, in effect, confirm their belief that it is your fault.
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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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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.
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Many, many people have done a lot more sexual experimentation than I have.
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There is still the feeling that women's writing is a lesser class of writing, that what goes on in the nursery or the bedroom is not as important as what goes on in the battlefield, that what women know about is a less category of knowledge.
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It's easier to write about pain than about joy. Joy is wordless.
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The soul is awakened through service.
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The worst thing about jealousy is how low it makes you reach.
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A poem (surely someone has said this before) is a one-night stand, a short story a love affair, and a novel a marriage.
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Friends love misery... our misery is what endears us to our friends.
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Why do analysts always answer a question with a question?
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Murky language means someone wants to pick your pocket.
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My mother wanted me to be her wings, to fly as she never quite had the courage to do. I love her for that. I love the fact that she wanted to give birth to her own wings.
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Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.