Erica Jong Quotes
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I believe I belong to the last literary generation, the last generation, that is, for whom books are a religion.
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Poetry is the language we speak in the most terrifying or ecstatic passages of our lives. But the very word poetry scares people. They think of their grade school teachers reciting 'Hiawatha' and they groan.
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Is there no Villain in this World who doth not regard himself as a poor abus'd Innocent, no She-Wolf who doth not think herself a Lamb, no Shark who doth not fancy that she is a Goldfish?
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... what is great poetry, after all, but the continuation of the human voice after death?
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Friends love misery, in fact. Sometimes, especially if we are too lucky or too successful or too pretty, our misery is the only thing that endears us to our friends.
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Plot is just a fancy way of saying 'and then.
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We all have fantasies about sex that are more perfect than anything in reality.
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There is a rhythm to the ending of a marriage just like the rhythm of a courtship-only backward. You try to start again but get into blaming over and over. Finally you are both worn out, exhausted, hopeless. Then lawyers are called in to pick clean the corpses. The death has occurred much earlier.
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Writing about sex turns out to be just writing about life.
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I am never so calm as after I have written. And the next morning I will feel the familiar anxiety and I will have to begin the process all over again.
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Language can't be appropriated by one person, one poet. The words belong to all of us.
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Many, many people have done a lot more sexual experimentation than I have.
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Perhaps every generation thinks of itself as a lost generation and perhaps every generation is right.
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Fame means millions of people have the wrong idea of who you are.
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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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Since flesh can't stay, we pass the words along.
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Always do the things you fear the most. Courage is an acquired taste, like caviar.
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I didn't believe in systems. Everything human was imperfect and ultimately absurd. What did I believe in then? In humor. In laughing at systems, at people, at one's self. In laughing even at one's need to laugh all the time. In seeing life as contradictory, many-sided, various, funny, tragic, and with moments of outrageous beauty. In seeing life as a fruitcake, including delicious plums and bad peanuts, but meant to be devoured hungrily all the same because you couldn't feast on the plums without also sometimes being poisoned by the peanuts.
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All authors know that any book is a casting of runes, a reading of cards, a map of the palm and heart. We make up the ocean - then fall in. But we also write the life raft.
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I think professionalism is important, and professionalism means you get paid.
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In a world where women work three times as hard for half as much, our achievement has been denigrated, both marriage and divorce have turned against us, our motherhood has been used as an obstacle to our success, our passion as a trap, our empathy for others as an excuse to underpay us.
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Fear is a sign-usually a sign that I'm doing something right.
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When I met my husband, I refused to invite him home for Passover because I was embarrassed my mother might serve all the catered dishes in the wrong order.
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Images are ... a kind of emotional shorthand.