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I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged...I had poems which were re-written so many times I suspect it was just a way of avoiding sending them out.

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
Many
Finish
Writing
Judged
Went
Finishing
Something
Courses
Sending
Years
Course
Suspect
Way
Written
Suspects
Times
Avoiding
Anything
Poems

More quotes by Erica Jong

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The trick is not how much pain you feel - but how much joy you feel
Erica Jong
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Mediocre prose might be read as an escape, might be spoken on television by actors, or mouthed in movies. But mediocre poetry did not exist at all. If poetry wasn't good, it wasn't poetry. It was that simple.
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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We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.
Erica Jong
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I never became a writer for the money. I am a poet first. Even getting published is a miracle for poets.
Erica Jong
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A baby's mother also needs a mother.
Erica Jong
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Isn't that the problem? That women have been swindled for centuries into substituting adornment for love, fashion (as it were) for passion?
Erica Jong
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I see the whole episode in my memory as if it were a very crisply photographed black and white movie. Directed by Bergman perhaps.We are playing ourselves in the movie version. If only we could escape from always having to play ourselves !
Erica Jong
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The best slave does not need to be beaten. She beats herself.
Erica Jong
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I started with poetry because it was direct, immediate, and short. It was the ecstasy of striking matches in the dark.
Erica Jong
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There are no atheists on turbulent airplanes.
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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A new dog never replaces an old dog, it merely expands the heart.
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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They keep saying the right person will come along. I think mine got hit by a truck.
Erica Jong
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You have to enjoy being a woman. Why should being a woman be such a negative thing where you always have to improve yourself? I have never in my entire life met a man who didn't want to go to bed with me because I was too fat.
Erica Jong
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Birth is the start of loneliness and loneliness the start of poetry.
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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I think professionalism is important, and professionalism means you get paid.
Erica Jong
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My generation had Doris Day as a role model, then Gloria Steinem--then Princess Diana. We are the most confused generation.
Erica Jong