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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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Erica Jong
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 26
Author
Feminist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
New York City
New York
Erica Mann Jong
Misery
Merely
Shadow
Joy
Emphasizes
Present
Miseries
Future
Blocks
Past
Joys
Block

More quotes by 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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There are no atheists on turbulent airplanes.
Erica Jong
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What I would like to give my daughter is freedom. And this is something that must be given by example, not by exhortation.
Erica Jong
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Plot is just a fancy way of saying 'and then.
Erica Jong
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People always think that history proceeds in a straight line. It doesn't. Social attitudes don't change in a straight line. There's always a backlash against progressive ideas.
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
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Few women see power as an end in itself. The point of power is the freedom to cultivate roses.
Erica Jong
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You must find the right voice (or voices) for the timbre that can convince a reader to give himself up to you.
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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I don't believe in organized religion. I believe that people should try to connect with their own life force and let it lead them to do with their lives what they will find satisfying.
Erica Jong
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Motherhood cannot finally be delegated. Breast-feeding may succumb to the bottle cuddling, fondling, and paediatric visits may also be done by fathers...but when a child needs a mother to talk to, nobody else but a mother will do.
Erica Jong
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Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.
Erica Jong
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Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.
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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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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As yet we use our media only for selling things - including, of course, political candidates. What will happen when someone masters the art of selling souls?
Erica Jong
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All people believe their suffering is greater than others.
Erica Jong
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What a damnably lonely profession writing is! In order to do it, one must banish the world, and having banished it, one feels cosmically alone.
Erica Jong
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I convinced myself that sadness and compromise were the ways of the world.
Erica Jong
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Each day that I don't write I get more fragmented.
Erica Jong