110+ Erica Jong Quotes (Creative, Witty And Bold)

Erica Jong is an American novelist and poet, known for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying. She is also known for her contributions to the feminist movement and her advocacy of women's rights. She has published numerous works of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, including her most recent novel, Fear of Dying.

Top 10 Erica Jong Quotes

1. Everyone has talent. What's rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.
2. Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.
3. You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.
4. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.
5. The stones themselves are thick with history, and those cats that dash through the alleyways must surely be the ghosts of the famous dead in feline disguise.
6. I have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back.
7. Everyone has a talent. What is rare is the courage to nurture it in solitude and to follow the talent to the dark places where it leads.
8. Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own.
9. Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.
10. Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.

Erica Jong Image Quotes

And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more. — Erica Jong

Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own. — Erica Jong

Jealousy is all the fun you think they had. — Erica Jong

Erica Jong Short Quotes

• Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one is to blame.
• Always do the things you fear the most. Courage is an acquired taste, like caviar.
• Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.
• The trick is not how much pain you feel - but how much joy you feel
• We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.
• Humor is one of the most serious tools we have for dealing with impossible situations.
• I have not ceased being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me.
• Betrayal betrays the betrayer.
• Images are ... a kind of emotional shorthand.
• Driving me away is easier than saying goodbye.

Erica Jong Famous Quotes And Sayings

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything that 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

And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more. — Erica Jong

Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own. — Erica Jong

Dogs come into our lives to teach us about love and loyalty. They depart to teach us about loss. A new dog never replaces an old dog; it merely expands the heart. If you have loved many dogs, your heart is very big. — Erica Jong

Jealousy is all the fun you think they had. — Erica Jong

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

Love is everything it's cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. — Erica Jong

My mother wanted me to be her wings, to fly as she never quite had the courage to do. I love her for that. I love the fact that she wanted to give birth to her own wings. — Erica Jong

I don't think you will ever fully understand how you've touched my life and made me who I am. I don't think you could ever know just how truly special you are that even on the darkest nights you are my brightest star — Erica Jong

The only difference between men and women is that women are able to create new little human beings in their bodies while simultaneously writing books, driving tractors, working in offices, planting crops - in general, doing everything men do. — Erica Jong

I stand in the mist and cry, thinking of myself standing in the mist and crying, and wondering if I will ever be able to use this experience in a book. — Erica Jong

The greatest feminists have also been the greatest lovers. I'm thinking not only of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley, but of Anais Nin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and of course Sappho. You cannot divide creative juices from human juices. And as long as juicy women are equated with bad women, we will err on the side of being bad. — Erica Jong

In any triangle, who is the betrayer, who the unseen rival, and who the humiliated lover? Oneself, oneself, and no one but oneself! — Erica Jong

I can live without it all -- love with its blood pump, sex with its messy hungers, men with their peacock strutting, their silly sexual baggage, their wet tongues in my ear. — Erica Jong

Where is Hollywood located? Chiefly between the ears. In that part of the American brain lately vacated by God. — Erica Jong

At fifty the madwoman in the attic breaks loose, stomps down the stairs, and sets fire to the house. She won't be imprisoned anymore. — Erica Jong

Fame means millions of people have the wrong idea of who you are. — Erica Jong

To name oneself is the first act of both the poet and the revolutionary. — Erica Jong

It is the city of mirrors, the city of mirages, at once solid and liquid, at once air and stone. — Erica Jong

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

Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy the Church. America Hollywood. — Erica Jong

We are finally driven to monogamy not by morality but by exhaustion. — Erica Jong

If we can be sufficient unto ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs. — Erica Jong

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

Writers are doubters, compulsives, self-flagellants. The torture only stops for brief moments. — Erica Jong

Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy gets the Catholic Church. America gets Hollywood. — Erica Jong

Singularity shows something wrong in the mind. — Erica Jong

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

Divorce is my generation's coming of age ceremony - a ritual scarring that makes anything that happens afterward seem bearable. — Erica Jong

As a reader, I want a book to kidnap me into its world. Its world must make my so-called real world seem flimsy. Its world must lure me to return. When I close the book, I should feel bereft. — Erica Jong

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

My reaction to porno films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live. — Erica Jong

They keep saying the right person will come along. I think mine got hit by a truck. — Erica Jong

Women are their own worst enemies. And guilt is the main weapon of self-torture . . . Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man. — Erica Jong

Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness. — Erica Jong

It is not surprising that Venice is known above all for mirrors and glass since Venice is the most narcissistic city in the world, the city that celebrates self-mirroring. — Erica Jong

If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it's because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that's the most revolutionary insight of all. — Erica Jong

Denounce useless guilt. Don’t make a cult of suffering. Live in the now(or at least the soon). Always do the things you fear most. Courage is an acquired taste like caviar. Trust all joy. If the evil eye fixes you in its gaze, look elsewhere. Get ready to be 87. — Erica Jong

Hate generalizes; love is particular. — Erica Jong

Love is serene and calm — Erica Jong

I see that the greatest thing about getting older is how your judgment changes and how you come to understand the cycles of life. And you keep having these amazing flashes of understanding. — Erica Jong

A wet dream in the mind of New York. — Erica Jong

Perhaps it is because Venice is both liquid and solid, both air and stone, that it somehow combines all the elements crucial to make our imaginations ignite and turn fantasies into realities. — Erica Jong

A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive. — Erica Jong

There is a rhythm to the ending of a marriage just like the rhythm of a courtship, only backward. — Erica Jong

There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna and I'd been treated by at least six of them. And married a seventh. — Erica Jong

All natural disasters are comforting because they reaffirm our impotence, in which, otherwise, we might stop believing. At times it is strangely sedative to know the extent of your own powerlessness. — Erica Jong

Friends love misery, in fact. Sometimes, especially if we are too lucky or too successful or too pretty, our misery is the only thing that endears us to our friends. — Erica Jong

Men have always detested women's gossip because they suspect the truth: their measurements are being taken and compared. — Erica Jong

In a world where women work three times as hard for half as much, our achievement has been denigrated, both marriage and divorce have turned against us, our motherhood has been used as an obstacle to our success, our passion as a trap, our empathy for others as an excuse to underpay us. — Erica Jong

Keeping a journal implies hope. — Erica Jong

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

It's horrible getting older. I mean, it's wonderful because you see the circles of life get completed. But it's horrible losing your looks. — Erica Jong

Sometimes it was worth all the disadvantages of marriage just to have that: one friend in an indifferent world. — Erica Jong

Nothing quite has reality for me till I write it all down--revising and embellishing as I go. I'm always waiting for things to be over so I can get home and commit them to paper. — Erica Jong

Perhaps all artists were, in a sense, housewives: tenders of the earth household. — Erica Jong

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

A new dog never replaces an old dog, it merely expands the heart. — Erica Jong

I've kept journals at many times in my life starting from when I was about 13 or 14. But it's boring and contrived to keep a journal every day. Better to write as the mood strikes. — Erica Jong

Pregnancy seemed like a tremendous abdication of control. Something growing inside you which would eventually usurp your life. — Erica Jong

I am not quite sure how writing changes things, but I know that it does. It is indirect-like the trails of earthworms aerating the earth. It is not always deliberate-like the tails of glowing dust dragged by comets. — Erica Jong

Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man. — Erica Jong

Solitude is un-American. — Erica Jong

I want you. I want you. I want you. Anything to avoid saying: I love you. — Erica Jong

The truth is simple, you do not die from love. You only wish you did. — Erica Jong

If there's anything the world disdains more than uppity young women, it's uppity old women. Dying young has always been a woman's best career move. — Erica Jong

As a seasoned insomniac, I knew sometimes the way to beat sleeplessness was to outwit it: to pretend you didn't care about sleeping. Then sometimes sleep became piqued, like a rejected lover, and crept up to try to seduce you. — Erica Jong

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

As women got little crumbs of power, men began to act paranoid - as if we'd disabled them utterly. Do all women have to keep silent for men to speak? Do all women have to be legless for men to walk? — Erica Jong

Though my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything. — Erica Jong

The best slave does not need to be beaten. She beats herself. — Erica Jong

This is the sad bed of chosen chastity because you are miles and mountains away. — Erica Jong

A baby's a full time job for three adults. Nobody tells you that when you're pregnant, or you'd probably jump off a bridge. Nobody tells you how all-consuming it is to be a mother-how reading goes out the window and thinking too. — Erica Jong

... what is great poetry, after all, but the continuation of the human voice after death? — Erica Jong

When you start having lunch and actually eating, it's already over. — Erica Jong

Allow me to put the record straight. I am forty-six and have been for some years past. — Erica Jong

Each artist or writer who works in Venice comes to believe that the city yields its most special secret to him or her alone. — Erica Jong

What is the fatal charm of Italy? What do we find there that can be found nowhere else? I believe it is a certain permission to be human, which other places, other countries, lost long ago. — Erica Jong

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

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

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

Why do analysts always answer a question with a question? — Erica Jong

Poems, like dreams, are a sort of royal road to the unconscious. They tell you what your secret self cannot express. — Erica Jong

Court, in our society, is often the last resort of stubbornness. — Erica Jong

I thought of the nameless inventor of the bathtub. I was somehow sure it was a woman. And was the inventor of the bathtub plug a man? — Erica Jong

I'm not classically pretty; I've always been too heavy; I've had thyroid disease and it's very hard for me to lose weight - but I've always had men pursue me. I've always had that 'it' thing. God knows why. Maybe it's pheromones, I don't know. — Erica Jong

I think professionalism is important, and professionalism means you get paid. — Erica Jong

biography is essentially a collaborative art, the latest biographer collaborating with all those who wrote earlier. — Erica Jong

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

it is not unusual to hate great writers before we learn to love them. Because they have created something that did not yet exist, they must also create their audience. Sometimes the audience is not yet ready. Sometimes it has yet to be born. — Erica Jong

I see the whole episode in my memory as if it were a very crisply photographed black and white movie. Directed by Bergman perhaps.We are playing ourselves in the movie version. If only we could escape from always having to play ourselves ! — Erica Jong

of all the foolish Fears of Humankind, Fear of the Future is by far the most foolish. — Erica Jong

Don't ye know that ev'ry Soul on Earth feels itself to be an Orphan? — Erica Jong

Life Lessons by Erica Jong

1. Erica Jong's work encourages readers to embrace their own power, to take risks and to remain true to themselves.
2. Through her writing, she encourages readers to live life to the fullest, to take chances and to be confident in their own abilities.
3. Her work also emphasizes the importance of self-love and self-acceptance, and encourages readers to be brave and to never give up.