Erica Jong Quotes

Why are women so ungenerous to other women? Is it because we have been tokens for so long? Or is the...

Generations of women have sacrificed their lives to become their mothers. But we do not have that lu...

There's nothing good about being ordinary. People don't respect you for it. People run after people ...

Young women dream of romance and passion as men dream of conquest because those dreams are necessary...

Women in America read 'lifestyle' pages which are really glorifications of shopping. They teach us w...

...filled her memory bank with shiny coins.

...readers who think I have answers when all I have are a few pointed questions...

Fame turns out to be a powerful instrument of grace because it humbles its chosen victims in a hurry...

It was easy enough to kill yourself in a fit of despair. It was easy enough to play the martyr. It w...

We came to realize how little married couples see of each other once they crawl in the bourgeois box...

Any system was a straightjacket if you insisted on adhering to it so totally and humorlessly.

It's only when you're forbidden to talk about the future that you suddenly realize how much the futu...

There is nothing fiercer than a failed artist. The energy remains, but having no outlet, it implodes...

Maybe marriages are best in middle age. When all the nonsense falls away and you realize you have to...

Though my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrif...

Tears are a form of communication - like speech - and require a listener.

We're programmed for suffering, not joy. The masochism is built in at a very early age. You're suppo...

And the trouble is if you don't risk anything you risk even more.

Women are individuals in parenting, and why not?

Bigamy is having one husband too many. Monogamy is the same.

Everyone has a talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it ...

Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.

Everyone has a talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark places where it ...

Poetry is what we turn to in the most emotional moments of our life - when a beloved friend dies, wh...

the body is wiser than its inhabitants. the body is the soul. the body is god’s messenger.

Solitude is un-American.

Famous people complain about fame, but they never want to give it back, myself included.

The soul is awakened through service.

The greatest feminists have also been the greatest lovers. I'm thinking not only of Mary Wollstonecr...

I know some good marriages-marriages where both people are just trying to get through their days by ...

Many people today believe that cynicism requires courage. Actually, cynicism is the height of coward...

There are no atheists on turbulent airplanes.

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. Th...

I have not ceased being fearful but I have ceased to let fear control me.

she died of internal weeping

I was afraid to write Fear of Flying ergo I had to write it. I have lived my life according to thi...

The stones themselves are thick with history, and those cats that dash through the alleyways must su...

I don't believe what you believe," I yelled, "and I don't respect your beliefs and I don't respect y...

Nothing quite has reality for me till I write it all down--revising and embellishing as I go. I'm al...

Someday every woman will have orgasms- like every family has color TV- and we can all get on with th...

But if the gods do not exist at all - then we are lost,' I said.On the contrary - we are found!' sai...

Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

I have accepted fear as part of life – specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite ...

You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.

I write lustily and humorously. It isn't calculated it's the way I think. I've invented a writing s...

Often I find that poems predict what I'm going to do later in my own writing, and often I find that ...

If every day I dare to remember that I am here on loan that this house this hillside these minu...

I have accepted fear as a part of life-specifically the fear of change. ... I have gone ahead despit...

What all the ads and whoreoscopes seemed to imply was that if only you were narcissistic enough, if ...

Fame means millions of people have the wrong idea of who you are.

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it lea...

Critics write out of intellectual exercise, not poets. Poets write straight from the heart.

Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.

When I'm sitting at the desk not being able to write line one, it's silence and despair! It's not so...

I thought to spend my declining years writing poetry and teaching - but that won't pay the Bergdorf'...

Poetry is the language we speak in the most terrifying or ecstatic passages of our lives. But the ve...

Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.

Men and women, women and men. It will never work.

What are the sources of poetry? Love and death and the paradox of love and death. All poetry from th...

Sometimes it was worth all the disadvantages of marriage just to have that: one friend in an indiffe...

It takes courage to lead a life. Any life.

Most people in this country are looking for literature that is useful. They feel that just exploring...

In poetry you can express almost inexpressible feelings. You can express the pain of loss, you can e...

When women have so absorbed the disease of sexism that they themselves can inflict it on each other,...

I guess the thing that I'm most proud of is that I kept on writing poetry. I understand that poetry ...

I had forgotten how awful it was to be a woman alone--the leering glances, the catcalls, the offers ...

Because When you write about people, you inevitably offend--but if you write about animals, the evil...

In a certain sense, you do write to seduce the world, but when it happens, you begin to feel like a ...

My grandchildren are fabulous and funny.

No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while...

I went for years not finishing anything. Because of course when you finish something you can be ju...

I have accepted fear as a part of life-specifically the fear of change. ... I have gone ahead despit...

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

I have accepted fear as a part of life -specifically the fear of change ... I have gone ahead despit...

Everyone has talent. What's rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it le...

Naomi Wolf dares to explode the myth of 'victim feminism' and pleads for allowing women to be as ful...

How did I get to be a grown-up? At times, I find myself still sitting on the hillside, plotting reve...

You're afraid of criticism,' she says. 'But criticism is a sign of life! You know who doesn't get cr...

And what is laughter anyway? Changing the angle of vision.

We also fought about everything -- like real sisters. We fought about money, bedrooms, whose car to ...

Without the gods, how would I sing?' I asked.With your own voice,' he said.

I stand in the mist and cry, thinking of myself standing in the mist and crying, and wondering if I ...

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. Th...

There is nothing fiercer than a failed artist. The energy remains, but, having no outlet, it implode...

Beware of books. They are more than innocent assemblages of paper and ink and string and glue. If th...

We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.

All writing problems are psychological problems. Blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged. ...

Rendall's first law of jealousy: jealousy does the cock harder and pussy wetter.

The words carry their own momentum. A confession in motion tends to stay in motion. Newton's first l...

Husband and wife have no time left to spend together. Marriage took away our one reason for getting ...

The virtues about marriage were mostly negative virtues. Being unmarried in a man's world was such a...

You don't have to beat a woman if you can make her feel guilty.