Erica Jong Quotes
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There is no loneliness like the loneliness of a dead marriage.
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There is nothing fiercer than a failed artist. The energy remains, but, having no outlet, it implodes in a great black fart of rage which smokes up all the inner windows of the soul. Horrible as successful artists often are, there is nothing crueler or more vain than a failed artist.
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The Lives of Great Men are more oft' at variance with their profess'd Phillosophies than consistent with 'em.
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Fame is merely the fact of being misunderstood by millions of people.
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Always do the things you fear the most. Courage is an acquired taste, like caviar.
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We write as if our lives depended upon it. They do.
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There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna and I'd been treated by at least six of them. And married a seventh.
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Pregnancy seemed like a tremendous abdication of control. Something growing inside you which would eventually usurp your life.
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People always think that history proceeds in a straight line. It doesn't. Social attitudes don't change in a straight line. There's always a backlash against progressive ideas.
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Never joke with the press. Irony does not translate into newsprint.
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I had been a feminist all my life, but the big problem was how to make your feminism jibe with you unappeasable hunger for male bodies.
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I believe that women should live for love, for motherhood and for intellect, and I believe we shouldn't have to choose. And I believe that's always been difficult for women, to express themselves intellectually, maternally, and passionately.
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I started with poetry because it was direct, immediate, and short. It was the ecstasy of striking matches in the dark.
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The sexuality doesn't end. It really doesn't. You're sexual your whole life, if you're a sexual person.
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There's another part of getting older that's just wonderful. Which is you see the way the stories turn out with peoples' lives.
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We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.
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My generation had Doris Day as a role model, then Gloria Steinem--then Princess Diana. We are the most confused generation.
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Unhappiness is our element. We come to believe we can't function without it.
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Where is Hollywood located? Chiefly between the ears. In that part of the American brain lately vacated by God.
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Driving me away is easier than saying goodbye.
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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.
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it is not unusual to hate great writers before we learn to love them. Because they have created something that did not yet exist, they must also create their audience. Sometimes the audience is not yet ready. Sometimes it has yet to be born.
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Perfectionism is the enemy of art. Since art is essentially divine play, not dogged work, it often happens that as one becomes more professionally driven one also becomes less capriciously playful.
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I think the Jews are an amazing group of people and their survival is amazing.