Quote

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

More quotes by Erica Jong

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Each day that I don't write I get more fragmented.
Erica Jong
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That was probably the mistake of my generation, that we thought that having sex with anyone would be intimate and it wasn't.
Erica Jong
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In a way women are fleshier because of estrogen. It's hard for us to lose weight because when we get super skinny we don't ovulate. Women in camps during the Holocaust didn't menstruate and didn't ovulate. They were starving they were terrified. Why emulate that condition? It's nonsensical to me.
Erica Jong
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Eating is never so simple as hunger.
Erica Jong
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I have lived my life according to this principle: If I'm afraid of it, then I must do it.
Erica Jong
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Blocks usually stem from fear of being judged. If you imagine the world is listening, you'll never write a line.
Erica Jong
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Fear is a sign-usually a sign that I'm doing something right.
Erica Jong
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At certain historic moments, grandparents took on childrearing responsibilities. In many cultures, they still do. Chinese grandparents who are able to retire at 55 are seen all over Beijing bouncing grandbabies. In the United States, we can't afford to retire at 55.
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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The most important thing for a writer is to be locked in a study.
Erica Jong
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Genius is a strong aphrodisiac.
Erica Jong
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Writers tend to be addicted to houses ... We work at home, indulging the agoraphobia endemic to our kind. We are immersed in our surroundings to an almost morbid degree.
Erica Jong
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We are finally driven to monogamy not by morality but by exhaustion.
Erica Jong
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... what is great poetry, after all, but the continuation of the human voice after death?
Erica Jong
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To name oneself is the first act of both the poet and the revolutionary.
Erica Jong
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Feminism is teaching. I've gotten a lot of pleasure pushing younger writers that I've met and worked with.
Erica Jong
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Not everybody has to be a parent. In fact, in an overpopulated world where our resources are shrinking, it would be wonderful if people who didn't want children felt free to say so. In the 1970s, there was more tolerance for the idea that not everybody needs to be a biological parent.
Erica Jong
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If we don't risk anything, we risk even more.
Erica Jong
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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.
Erica Jong
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When I was a ten-year old bookworm and used to kiss the dust jacket pictures of authors as if they were icons, it used to amaze me that these remote people could provoke me to love.
Erica Jong