Quote

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.

Erica Jong

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Erica Jong
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 26
Author
Feminist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
New York City
New York
Erica Mann Jong
Love
Shouldn
Express
Choose
Difficult
Women
Passionately
Live
Intellectually
Believe
Motherhood
Always
Intellect

More quotes by Erica Jong

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Coupling doesn't always have to do with sex ... Two people holding each other up like flying buttresses. Two people depending on each other and babying each other and defending each other against the world outside. Sometimes it was worth all the disadvantages of marriage just to have that: one friend in an indifferent world.
Erica Jong
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I think men have always been afraid of women's sexuality, and the restrictions they put on women testify to that.
Erica Jong
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What I would like to give my daughter is freedom. And this is something that must be given by example, not by exhortation.
Erica Jong
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Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy the Church. America Hollywood.
Erica Jong
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It's easier to write about pain than about joy. Joy is wordless.
Erica Jong
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As a past president of the Writers Guild, I think women shouldn't write for free. Maybe you have to do it for a time, to make a reputation, but I think the idea of giving your work away is the beginning of authors not being able to make a living.
Erica Jong
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We write poems / as leaves give oxygen - / so we can breathe.
Erica Jong
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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.
Erica Jong
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It is a sad paradox that when male authors impersonate women ... they are said to be dealing with 'cosmic, major concerns' - but when we impersonate ourselves we are said to be writing 'women's fiction' or 'women's poetry.
Erica Jong
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As yet we use our media only for selling things - including, of course, political candidates. What will happen when someone masters the art of selling souls?
Erica Jong
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Never joke with the press. Irony does not translate into newsprint.
Erica Jong
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Keeping a journal implies hope.
Erica Jong
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They keep saying the right person will come along. I think mine got hit by a truck.
Erica Jong
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I write lustily and humorously. It isn't calculated it's the way I think. I've invented a writing style that expresses who I am.
Erica Jong
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The Lives of Great Men are more oft' at variance with their profess'd Phillosophies than consistent with 'em.
Erica Jong
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You are always naked when you start writing you are always as if you had never written anything before you are always a beginner. Shakespeare wrote without knowing he would become Shakespeare
Erica Jong
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The soul is awakened through service.
Erica Jong
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I think poetry is the best thing I do. It's certainly the purest. I seem to switch gears without too much trouble. Non-fiction is in many ways the easiest to write.
Erica Jong
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How wonderful to have someone to blame! How wonderful to live with one's nemesis! You may be miserable, but you feel forever in the right.
Erica Jong
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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.
Erica Jong