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It is the nature of those books we call classics to wait patiently on the shelf for us to grow into them.

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
Wait
Grow
Grows
Books
Waiting
Classics
Call
Patiently
Nature
Shelf
Book
Shelves

More quotes by Erica Jong

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Great loves have legs and wings. They are substantial. They do not dissapate so easily... Great loves have staying power. Or so I told myself.
Erica Jong
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Solitude is considered un-American.
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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A new dog never replaces an old dog, it merely expands the heart.
Erica Jong
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We all parent the best we can. Being human, we're ambivalent. We want perfection for our babies, but we also need sleep.
Erica Jong
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In a bad marriage, friends are the invisible glue. If we have enough friends, we may go on for years, intending to leave, talking about leaving -instead of actually getting up and leaving.
Erica Jong
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No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool.
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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I think the Jews are an amazing group of people and their survival is amazing.
Erica Jong
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I write slowly by hand. Publishing is effectively bankrupt for you unless you are Danielle Steele. It takes a year to write book and advances are going down or disappearing.
Erica Jong
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The trick is not how much pain you feel--but how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain. Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not to live, excuses, excuses, excuses.
Erica Jong
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Anger is really disappointed hope.
Erica Jong
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I don't necessarily read everything. I read what I need to read to inspire the book I'm trying to finish.
Erica Jong
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When I'm sitting at the desk not being able to write line one, it's silence and despair! It's not so easy to put the pen to the legal pad or type the first sentence on the computer screen.
Erica Jong
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But if the gods do not exist at all - then we are lost,' I said. On the contrary - we are found!' said Aesop. But when we are afraid, who can we turn to, if not the gods?' Ourselves. We turn to ourselves anyway. We only pretend there are gods and that they care about us. It is a comforting falsehood.
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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I convinced myself that sadness and compromise were the ways of the world.
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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Critics write out of intellectual exercise, not poets. Poets write straight from the heart.
Erica Jong
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Courage is the only Magic worth having.
Erica Jong