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It takes courage to lead a life. Any life.

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
Takes
Life
Adventure
Lead
Courage

More quotes by 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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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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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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We write poems / as leaves give oxygen - / so we can breathe.
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
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Because I loved myself, I was loved.
Erica Jong
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Harriet van Horne He makes love to me expertly, mechanically, coldly... He's pressing all my buttons, as if I were a pocket calculator.
Erica Jong
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The hardest part is believing in yourself at the notebook stage. It is like believing in dreams in the morning.
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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There are no atheists on turbulent airplanes.
Erica Jong
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what was time but a convention, a habit of mind, a custom of dress?
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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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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Hate generalizes love is particular.
Erica Jong
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Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.
Erica Jong
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Isn't it our job to be appalled by our parents? Isn't it every generation's duty to be dismayed by the previous generation? And to assert that we are different - only to discover later that we are distressingly the same?
Erica Jong
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Always do the things you fear the most. Courage is an acquired taste, like caviar.
Erica Jong
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I look forward and see myself look back.
Erica Jong
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we need poetry most at those moments when life astounds us with losses, gains, or celebrations. We need it most when we are most hurt, most happy, most downcast, most jubilant. Poetry is the language we speak in times of greatest need. And the fact that it is an endangered species in our culture tells us that we are in deep trouble.
Erica Jong
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Books go out into the world, travel mysteriously from hand to hand, and somehow find their way to the people who need them at the times when they need them ... Cosmic forces guide such passings-along.
Erica Jong