Erica Jong Quotes

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

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.

I stand in the mist and cry, thinking of myself standing in the mist and crying, and wondering if I will ever be able to use this experience in a book.

All writing problems are psychological problems. Blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged. If you imagine the world listening, you'll never write a line. That's why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.

I have accepted fear as part of life – specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back....

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

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

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

Every woman artist has to kill her own grandmother. She perches on our shoulder whispering, "Don't embarrass the family.

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

Though my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything.

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

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

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

Novices in the arts think you have to start with inspiration to write or paint or compose. In fact, you only have to start. Inspiration comes if you continue. Make the commitment to sit still in solitude several hours a day and inevitably your muse will visit.

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

But at the bottom of all the gloom, there is a sense that we are responsible for each other - if not for each other's happiness. There is empathy, admiration, respect for the other's intelligence and honesty.

Even when we are screaming and throwing things, we are friends. Who is the man and who is the woman? Sometimes neither of us knows. The marriage is androgynous - like the closest friendships. It will keep.

If I loved him, would I censor my writing to please him? If I married him, would I force my writing to be married as well?

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