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Erica Jong Quotes - Page 9

All Quotes Age Art Atheist Being Strong Birth Blame Censorship Children Country Courage Creativity Culture Divorce Dying Earth Eating Fame Fear Feelings Feminism Fighting Flying Funny Getting Older Giving Gossip Guilt Hate Heart Home House Hunger Hurt Husband Identity Inspirational Joy Language Life Literature Loss Love Magic Marriage Memories Morning Motherhood Pain Passion Past Reading Reality Responsibility Risk School Sexuality Silence Sleep Solitude Soul Survival Talent Teaching Waiting War Writing

Nothing quite has reality for me till I write it all down--revising and embellishing as I go. I'm always waiting for things to be over so I can get home and commit them to paper.

Nothing quite has reality for me till I write it all down--revising and embellishing as I go. I'm always waiting for things to be over so I can get home and commit them to paper.

Home, Writing, Reality

we all carry the Houses of our Youth inside, and our Parents, too, grown small enough to fit within our Hearts.

Family, Home, Heart

Erica Jong (1981). “Fanny”

I have a very sensitive nose. I identify with dogs. I understand the world through my nose.

Dog, Noses, World

When everyone thinks they know you, it's hard not to be guarded.

Thinking, Guarded, Knows

"Oprah, Kitty and Me" by Erica Jong, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 13, 2010.

Where is Hollywood located? Chiefly between the ears. In that part of the American brain lately vacated by God.

Funny, God, California

Erica Jong (1995). “How to Save Your Own Life”, N A L Trade

Venice is ever the fragile labyrinth at the edge of the sea and it reminds us how brief and perilous the journeys of our lives are; perhaps that is why we love it so. City of plagues and brief liaisons, city of lingering deaths and incendiary loves, city of chimeras, nightmares, pigeons, bells. You are the only city in the world whose dialect has a word for the shimmer of canal water reflected on the ceiling of a room.

Journey, Sea, Cities

Pleasure is terrifying because it breaks down the boundaries between people. Embracing passion means living with fear.

Sex, Mean, Passion

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

Marriage, Loyalty, World

Fear of Flying ch. 10 (1973)

There is a rhythm to the ending of a marriage just like the rhythm of a courtship-only backward. You try to start again but get into blaming over and over. Finally you are both worn out, exhausted, hopeless. Then lawyers are called in to pick clean the corpses. The death has occurred much earlier.

Marriage, Broken Heart, Divorce

Erica Jong (1995). “How to Save Your Own Life”, N A L Trade

You reach a point in life where you realize that you might as well do what you need to do, because your being loved or not being loved is really a function of the people you encounter and not of yourself. That is an immensely liberating insight.

Confidence, People, Encounters

All my forebears worked for a living. My grandfather painted portraits. My mother too. My aunt painted seascapes.

Mother, Aunt, Grandfather

"Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Erica Jong, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 10, 2008.

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.

Daughter, Mother, Spiritual

... what is great poetry, after all, but the continuation of the human voice after death?

Voice, After Death, Great Poetry

One writes not by will but by surrender.

Writing, Surrender

Erica Jong (1999). “What Do Women Want?: Bread, Roses, Sex, Power”, Perennial

Court, in our society, is often the last resort of stubbornness.

Law, Our Society, Lasts

Erica Jong (2006). “Fear of Fifty”, p.52, Penguin

As a reader, I want a book to kidnap me into its world. Its world must make my so-called real world seem flimsy. Its world must lure me to return. When I close the book, I should feel bereft.

Real, Book, World

Whenever I go anywhere but Italy for a vacation, I always feel vaguely disappointed, as if I have made a mistake.

Mistake, Vacation, Made

Erica Jong (1999). “What Do Women Want?: Bread, Roses, Sex, Power”, Perennial

The hardest part is believing in yourself at the notebook stage. It is like believing in dreams in the morning.

Notebook, Dream, Morning

I've kept journals at many times in my life starting from when I was about 13 or 14. But it's boring and contrived to keep a journal every day. Better to write as the mood strikes.

Writing, Diaries, Boring

Throughout much of history, women writers have capitulated to male standards, and have paid too much heed to what Virginia Woolf calls "the angel in the house." She is that little ghost who sits on one's shoulder while one writes and whispers, "Be nice, don't say anything that will embarrass the family, don't say anything your man will disapprove of ..." [ellipsis in original] The "angel in the house" castrates one's creativity because it deprives one of essential honesty, and many women writers have yet to win the freedom to be honest with themselves.

Honesty, Nice, Writing

What all the ads and whorescopes seemed to imply was that if only you took proper care of your smells, your hair, your boobs, your eyelashes, your armpits, your crotch, your stars, your scars, your choice of Scotch in bars - you would meet a beautiful powerful, potent, and rich man who would satisfy every longing, fill every hole, make your heart skip a beat (or stand still), make you misty, and fly you to the moon (preferably on gossamer wings), where you would live totally satisfied forever.

Beautiful, Stars, Powerful

Women in America read 'lifestyle' pages which are really glorifications of shopping. They teach us we must veil ourselves in make-up to be loved. And we willingly take the veil, thinking ourselves freed by it. Make-up is no more optional for us than the veil is for Arab women: it is our Western version of the chador.

Thinking, Shopping, America

Ken, my husband, just smelled like he belonged to me. I'm not talking about hygiene. I'm talking about when you hug him, he either feels like a member of your tribe or not. It's their scent.

Husband, Talking, Hygiene

I write slowly by hand. Publishing is effectively bankrupt for you unless you are Danielle Steele. It takes a year to write book and advances are going down or disappearing.

Book, Writing, Hands

Isn't that the problem? That women have been swindled for centuries into substituting adornment for love, fashion (as it were) for passion?

Fashion, Passion, Feminist

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