Quote

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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Erica Jong
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 26
Author
Feminist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
New York City
New York
Erica Mann Jong
Toes
Edge
Edges
Writers
Fire
Turns
Inferno
Always
Licking
Luckily

More quotes by Erica Jong

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You are always naked when you start writing you are always as if you had never written anything before you are always a beginner. Shakespeare wrote without knowing he would become Shakespeare
Erica Jong
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Isn't that the problem? That women have been swindled for centuries into substituting adornment for love, fashion (as it were) for passion?
Erica Jong
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A concern with 'public morality' is - if not the last refuge of a scoundrel - the first foray of the fascist.
Erica Jong
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We write poems / as leaves give oxygen - / so we can breathe.
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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Compose with utter freedom and edit with utter discipline.
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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I look forward and see myself look back.
Erica Jong
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You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.
Erica Jong
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Friends love misery... our misery is what endears us to our friends.
Erica Jong
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The dilemma is that if one does not risk anything one risks even more.
Erica Jong
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I think that the joy of writing a novel is the self-exploratio n that emerges and also that wonderful feeling of playing God with the characters. When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish. ... I think the most important thing for a writer is to be locked in a study.
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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Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.
Erica Jong
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Genius is a strong aphrodisiac.
Erica Jong
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I never became a writer for the money. I am a poet first. Even getting published is a miracle for poets.
Erica Jong
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I am not sure if love is a salve or just a deeper kind of wound.
Erica Jong
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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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writers do not choose their subjects their subjects choose them.
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