Erica Jong Quotes
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The older we get, the more Jewish we become in my family.
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Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own.
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Life has no plot. It is by far more interesting than anything you can say about it.
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Every time women make tremendous strides, the right wing gets terrified and creates laws making it hard to get an abortion or birth control.
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Perhaps it is because Venice is both liquid and solid, both air and stone, that it somehow combines all the elements crucial to make our imaginations ignite and turn fantasies into realities.
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I know some good marriages-marriages where both people are just trying to get through their days by helping each other, being good to each other.
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Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.
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It took me years to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the solitude and the terror of failure, and the godawful silence and the white paper.
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She was mine and not-mine all at once. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and the most terrifying.
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One writes not by will but by surrender.
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As a past president of the Writers Guild, I think women shouldn't write for free. Maybe you have to do it for a time, to make a reputation, but I think the idea of giving your work away is the beginning of authors not being able to make a living.
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People are terrified. A lot of them are in relationships that aren't satisfying, and if you tell them they can change their life, they get really scared.
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Venice, that capital city of dream and intrigue, that double city (one above and seemingly solid, one below, wavering and reflected in the waters), which never disappoints.
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I tried to keep myself away from him by using con words like "fidelity" and "adultery", by telling myself that he would interfere with my work, that I had him I'd be too happy to write. I tried to tell myself I was hurting Bennett, hurting myself, making a spectacle of myself. I was. But nothing helped. I was possessed. The minute he walked into a room and smiled at me, I was a goner.
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The absolute bedrock of our independence is having control over our own bodies. You cannot be independent if the government or someone else says whether or not you can use birth control. Unless you're in charge of your body, you're not in charge of anything. I think that's really the bottom line of feminism.
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Writers do not choose their subjects; their subjects choose them.
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Though my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything.
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The only people worth writing about are those about whom the last word cannot be said.
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I'm not classically pretty; I've always been too heavy; I've had thyroid disease and it's very hard for me to lose weight - but I've always had men pursue me. I've always had that 'it' thing. God knows why. Maybe it's pheromones, I don't know.
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A concern with 'public morality' is - if not the last refuge of a scoundrel - the first foray of the fascist.
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If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it's because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that's the most revolutionary insight of all.
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But we should ask the question: Why should a writer be more than a writer? Why should a writer be a guru? Why are we supposed to be psychiatrists? Isn't it enough to write and tell the truth? It's not like telling the truth is common. Writers are the earthworms of society. We aerate the soil. That's enough.
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We all parent the best we can. Being human, we're ambivalent. We want perfection for our babies, but we also need sleep.
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There is a rhythm to the ending of a marriage just like the rhythm of a courtship, only backward.