Erica Jong Quotes
-
Beware the Lure of a handsome Face, the all too ready Assumption that the lovely Façade must needs have lovely Chambers within; for as 'tis with Great Houses, so, too, with Great Men.
-
Art keeps one young, I think, because it keeps one perpetually a beginner, perpetually a child.
-
Generations of women have sacrificed their lives to become their mothers. But we do not have that luxury any more. The world has changed too much to let us have the lives our mothers had. And we can no longer afford the guilt we feel at not being our mothers. We cannot afford any guilt that pulls us back to the past. We have to grow up, whether we want to or not. We have to stop blaming men and mothers and seize every second of our lives with passion. We can no longer afford to waste our creativity. We cannot afford spiritual laziness.
-
A dreary censorship, and self-censorship, has been imposed on books by the centralization of the book industry.
-
I don't think that I had any idea that 'Fear of Flying' would become a part of the culture. I had no idea that it would go all over the world and be published in Chinese and Serbo-Croat and so on.
-
All natural disasters are comforting because they reaffirm our impotence, in which, otherwise, we might stop believing. At times it is strangely sedative to know the extent of your own powerlessness.
-
My reaction to porno films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.
-
Humor is one of the most serious tools we have for dealing with impossible situations.
-
My generation was not only maligned in book reviews and attacked in graduate school but we lived to see our adored and adorable daughters wonder why feminism had become a dirty word.
-
You must have a certain amount of maturity to be a poet. Seldom do sixteen-year-olds know themselves well enough.
-
I have lived my life according to this principle: If I'm afraid of it, then I must do it.
-
Memory is the most transient of all possessions. And when it goes, it leaves as few traces as stars that have disappeared.
-
I think that the joy of writing a novel is the self-exploratio n that emerges and also that wonderful feeling of playing God with the characters. When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish. ... I think the most important thing for a writer is to be locked in a study.
-
I have forgotten my rave reviews and memorized my vicious ones - like most writers.
-
Women are their own worst enemies. And guilt is the main weapon of self-torture . . . Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.
-
Many people today believe that cynicism requires courage. Actually, cynicism is the height of cowardice. It is innocence and open-heartednes s that requires the true courage -- however often we are hurt as a result of it.
-
Each of us only feels the torn lining of his own coat and sees the wholeness of the other person's.
-
The best slave does not need to be beaten. She beats herself.
-
At fifty the madwoman in the attic breaks loose, stomps down the stairs, and sets fire to the house. She won't be imprisoned anymore.
-
My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher." - Socrates (470-399 B.C.) "Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't
-
When I'm sitting at the desk not being able to write line one, it's silence and despair! It's not so easy to put the pen to the legal pad or type the first sentence on the computer screen.
-
What was time but a convention, a habit of mind, a custom of dress?
-
Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.
-
Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy the Church. America Hollywood.