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

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
Everything
Secretly
Always
Practically
Cheerful
Terrified
Confident
Seemed
Though
Friends
Envied

More quotes by Erica Jong

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I have enormous pride in the survival of the Jewish people, the cultural heritage of the Jewish people, but I'm not observant, and I don't belong to a synagogue. I don't go to temple on high holy days, but I'm proud to be Jewish.
Erica Jong
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The best slave does not need to be beaten. She beats herself.
Erica Jong
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There is no loneliness like the loneliness of a dead marriage.
Erica Jong
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Surviving means being born over and over.
Erica Jong
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Most sex doesn't really bring people together. You have to reach a certain level of connection, I think, and that's pretty rare.
Erica Jong
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Solitude is considered un-American.
Erica Jong
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Writers are always at the edge of the inferno, and the fire is licking at our toes. Luckily, this turns us on!
Erica Jong
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I am not quite sure how writing changes things, but I know that it does. It is indirect-like the trails of earthworms aerating the earth. It is not always deliberate-like the tails of glowing dust dragged by comets.
Erica Jong
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perfectionism is the enemy of art. Since art is essentially divine play, not dogged work, it often happens that as one becomes more professionally driven one also becomes less capriciously playful.
Erica Jong
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I see that the greatest thing about getting older is how your judgment changes and how you come to understand the cycles of life. And you keep having these amazing flashes of understanding.
Erica Jong
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I have forgotten my rave reviews and memorized my vicious ones - like most writers.
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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Women tend to be preservers of the social structure, of marriage. They don't want to upset their husbands or their significant others. They don't want to hurt people.
Erica Jong
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biography is essentially a collaborative art, the latest biographer collaborating with all those who wrote earlier.
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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We all have fantasies about sex that are more perfect than anything in reality.
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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Critics write out of intellectual exercise, not poets. Poets write straight from the heart.
Erica Jong
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The camera creates a magical transformation. It's not enough to exist we must chronicle that existence. ... Narrative- and image-making creatures like humans don't feel any experience is complete unless it's recorded.
Erica Jong
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Many people today believe that cynicism requires courage. Actually, cynicism is the height of cowardice. It is innocence and open-heartednes s that requires the true courage -- however often we are hurt as a result of it.
Erica Jong