Quote

What are the sources of poetry? Love and death and the paradox of love and death. All poetry from the beginning is about Eros and Thanatos. Those are the only subjects. And how Eros and Thanatos interweave.

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
Poetry
Source
Death
Thanatos
Love
Eros
Sources
Paradox
Beginning
Subjects

More quotes by Erica Jong

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I convinced myself that sadness and compromise were the ways of the world.
Erica Jong
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Courage is the only Magic worth having.
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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At times it is strangely sedative to know the extent of your own powerlessness.
Erica Jong
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The future is merely a shadow which blocks out the joys of the present and emphasizes the miseries of the past.
Erica Jong
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Every time I catch myself saying, Oh no, you shouldn't try that, I think, Yes, I should.
Erica Jong
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Love is love, but marriage is an investment.
Erica Jong
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Don't ye know that ev'ry Soul on Earth feels itself to be an Orphan?
Erica Jong
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We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.
Erica Jong
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A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive.
Erica Jong
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I am thinking of the onion again. . . . Not self-righteous like the proletarian potato, nor a siren like the apple. No show-off like the banana. But a modest, self-effacing vegetable, questioning, introspective, peeling itself away, or merely radiating halos like ripples.
Erica Jong
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I am not sure if love is a salve or just a deeper kind of wound.
Erica Jong
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Keeping a journal implies hope.
Erica Jong
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It is for this, partly, that I write. How can I know what I think unless I see what I write.
Erica Jong
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Sex doesn't disappear, it just changes forms.
Erica Jong
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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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If we ban whatever offends any group in our diverse society, we will soon have no art, no culture, no humor, no satire. Satire is by its nature offensive. So is much art and political discourse. The value of these expressions far outweighs their risk.
Erica Jong
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A poem (surely someone has said this before) is a one-night stand, a short story a love affair, and a novel a marriage.
Erica Jong
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Perhaps it is because Venice is both liquid and solid, both air and stone, that it somehow combines all the elements crucial to make our imaginations ignite and turn fantasies into realities.
Erica Jong
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If we don't risk anything, we risk even more.
Erica Jong