The trick is not how much pain you feel – but how much joy you feel
ERICA JONGNo one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.
More Erica Jong Quotes
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Unhappiness is our element. We come to believe we can’t function without it.
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And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.
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Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.
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Flesh is merely a lesson. We learn it & pass on.
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A new dog never replaces an old dog; it merely expands the heart. If you have loved many dogs, your heart is very big.
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If, every day, I dare to remember that I am here on loan, that this house, this hillside, these minutes are all leased to me, not given, I will never despair.
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Is a currency worth anything if no one wants it? We used to buy shoes in Italy. Remember?
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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.
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Creativity demands nothing less than all you have. Talent alone is never enough.
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We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.
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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.
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It takes courage to lead a life. Any life.
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To name oneself is the first act of both the poet and the revolutionary.
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Humor is one of the most serious tools we have for dealing with impossible situations.
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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.
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The best slave does not need to be beaten. She beats herself.
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I vowed to give up sex, bacon, and air travel if I ever made it back to terra firma in one piece.
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Though my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything.
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Freedom is a loose leash, license to be different from your mother and still be loved…Freedom is…not insisting that your daughter share your limitations. Freedom also means letting your daughter reject you when she needs to and come back when she needs to. Freedom is unconditional love.
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Of all the foolish Fears of Humankind, Fear of the Future is by far the most foolish.
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Do all women have to keep silent for men to speak? Do all women have to be legless for men to walk?
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No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.
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Young people never believe in the possibility of their own deaths. That’s one reason old men can send them to war.
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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 exhortation.
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If you don’t have time to do it right you must have time to do it right you must have time to do it over. If you don’t know where you are going, how do you know when you get there? If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.
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Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.
ERICA JONG