Quote

At times it is strangely sedative to know the extent of your own powerlessness.

Erica Jong

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Erica Jong
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 26
Author
Feminist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
New York City
New York
Erica Mann Jong
Times
Sedative
Powerlessness
Strangely
Extent

More quotes by Erica Jong

Image
the body is wiser than its inhabitants. the body is the soul. the body is god’s messenger.
Erica Jong
Image
I don't cook. My mother didn't cook. My daughter doesn't cook.
Erica Jong
Image
Venice, that capital city of dream and intrigue, that double city (one above and seemingly solid, one below, wavering and reflected in the waters), which never disappoints.
Erica Jong
Image
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
Image
in freeing myself from the romantic dream of finding another man to come along and rescue me, I learned that no one can rescue me except myself.
Erica Jong
Image
Poetry is what we turn to in the most emotional moments of our life - when a beloved friend dies, when a baby is born or when we fall in love.
Erica Jong
Image
Silence is the bluntest of blunt instruments.
Erica Jong
Image
As a past president of the Writers Guild, I think women shouldn't write for free. Maybe you have to do it for a time, to make a reputation, but I think the idea of giving your work away is the beginning of authors not being able to make a living.
Erica Jong
Image
All authors know that any book is a casting of runes, a reading of cards, a map of the palm and heart. We make up the ocean - then fall in. But we also write the life raft.
Erica Jong
Image
I am against censorship. I prefer the chaos of uncontrollable communication of all sorts to selective banning of certain materials. I do not think human beings can be trusted to be above politics and to promote the common good. One group's common good is another group's evil.
Erica Jong
Image
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
Image
I never became a writer for the money. I am a poet first. Even getting published is a miracle for poets.
Erica Jong
Image
Plot is just a fancy way of saying 'and then.
Erica Jong
Image
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
Image
The absolute bedrock of our independence is having control over our own bodies. You cannot be independent if the government or someone else says whether or not you can use birth control. Unless you're in charge of your body, you're not in charge of anything. I think that's really the bottom line of feminism.
Erica Jong
Image
When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish. I think it's a wonderful way to spend one's life.
Erica Jong
Image
How wonderful to have someone to blame! How wonderful to live with one's nemesis! You may be miserable, but you feel forever in the right.
Erica Jong
Image
I do believe that in every age there are people whose consciousness transcends their own time and that these people, whether fictional or historical, are those with whom we most closely identify and those about whom we most enjoy reading.
Erica Jong
Image
Singularity shows something wrong in the mind.
Erica Jong
Image
Memory is the most transient of all possessions. And when it goes, it leaves as few traces as stars that have disappeared.
Erica Jong