Erica Jong Quotes
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In freeing myself from the romantic dream of finding another man to come along and rescue me, I learned that no one can rescue me except myself.
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Writing about sex turns out to be just writing about life.
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Isn't it our job to be appalled by our parents? Isn't it every generation's duty to be dismayed by the previous generation? And to assert that we are different - only to discover later that we are distressingly the same?
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I don't necessarily read everything. I read what I need to read to inspire the book I'm trying to finish.
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I don't think that sex necessarily produces intimacy.
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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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The bruise on the heart which at first feels incredibly tender to the slightest touch eventually turns all the shades of the rainbow and stops aching. We forget about it. We even forget we have hearts until the next time. And then we wonder how we ever could have forgotten. We think this one is better, because, in fact, we cannot fully remember the time before.
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It is for this, partly, that I write. How can I know what I think unless I see what I write.
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If we are all made of God, it is our friends who remind us. We pass the gift of God to them. They pass it back to us when we need it most.
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Sadly, because of the enormous gap between rich and poor, some mothers can afford helpers, but many can't. Those who can would be kinder to refrain from criticizing other women.
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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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Is perception equivalent to existence?
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Writing has often been accompanied by terror, silences, and then wild bursts of private laughter that suddenly make all the dread seem worthwhile.
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The words carry their own momentum. A confession in motion tends to stay in motion. Newton's first law of jealousy.
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Really true intimacy is rare and it depends on other things besides sex.
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How could one create life with someone who represented death?
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The Passion that one Soul hath for God cannot be judged by another.
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Men must be stripped of arrogance and women must become independent for any mutually nurturing alliance to endure between the sexes.
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Memory is the crux of our humanity. Without memory we have no identities. That is really why I am committing an autobiography.
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What I would like to give my daughter is freedom. And this is something that must be given by example, not exhortation. Freedom is a loose leash, license to be different from your mother and still be loved...Freedom is...not insisting that your daughter share your limitations. Freedom also means letting your daughter reject you when she needs to and come back when she needs to. Freedom is unconditional love.
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I actually think leaving your children alone to fantasize, to write, to make projects on their own is good for them. Breathing down their necks is a form of control. Children should have their own space.
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Without the gods, how would I sing?' I asked. With your own voice,' he said.
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To name oneself is the first act of both the poet and the revolutionary.
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It was easy enough to kill yourself in a fit of despair. It was easy enough to play the martyr. It was harder to do nothing. To endure your life. To wait.