I have lived my life according to this principle: If I'm afraid of it, then I must do it. Erica Jong More Quotes by Erica Jong More Quotes From Erica Jong We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly...spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.- Susan Taylor--Everyone has a talent. What is rare is the courage to nurture it in solitude and to follow the talent to the dark places where it leads. Erica Jong darkopportunityorder 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. Erica Jong unusualhatesometimes The problem with feminism in the second wave was that we fought so much among ourselves, and I think we did so much damage to the movement... and I think the next wave, the third wave, is women mentoring younger women and women helping younger women to enter the political process and the writing world. Erica Jong politicalwritingthinking This is the sad bed of chosen chastity because you are miles and mountains away. Erica Jong long-distance-relationshipmountainbed Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own. Erica Jong dancetunesinspirational [Henry Miller] was such a scribomaniac that even when he lived in the same house as Lawrence Durrell they often exchanged letters. For most of his life, Henry wrote literally dozens of letters a day to people he could have easily engaged in conversation - and did. The writing process, in short, was essential. As it is to all real writers, writing was life and breath to him. He put out words as a tree puts out leaves. Erica Jong realwritingpeople Many, many people have done a lot more sexual experimentation than I have. Erica Jong experimentationdonepeople 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. Erica Jong soilcommonwriting O what is it about having one's own Babe upon one's Hip that makes a Woman wish to go home to her Mother? A Desire to say: 'Look, the Circle is compleat'? A Desire to say: 'Look, I have cross'd the Divide and now am more like you'? A Desire to say: 'Look, this Babe I offer you is my most precious Gift'? Erica Jong circlesmotherhome writers do not choose their subjects; their subjects choose them. Erica Jong subjects I remember everything but forgive anyway. Erica Jong remembers-everythingforgivingremember Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man. Erica Jong womenpowerfulwitty what storyteller is adequate to her story? The story carries us along, bottles on the tide, each with our secret mesage and the fervent hope that it does not turn out to be blank. Erica Jong bottlessecretdoe Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy the Church. America Hollywood. Erica Jong funnycountryamerica Any system was a straightjacket if you insisted on adhering to it so totally and humorlessly. Erica Jong ifs 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. Erica Jong divorcebroken-heartmarriage Is there a phrase in the English language more fraught with menace than a tax audit? Erica Jong menacephraseslanguage 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. Erica Jong honestynicewriting What makes a Man love Death, Fanny? Is it because he hopes to avert his own by watchin' the Deaths of others? Doth he hope to devour Death by devourin' Executions with his Eyes? I'll ne'er understand it, if I live to be eight hundred Years. The Human Beast is more Beast than Human, 'tis true. Erica Jong eighteyemen Being a daughter is only half the equation; bearing one is the other. Erica Jong equationsdaughterhalf
