The dilemma is that if one does not risk anything one risks even more.
ERICA JONGThe dilemma is that if one does not risk anything one risks even more.
ERICA JONGCompose with utter freedom and edit with utter discipline.
ERICA JONGHow could one create life with someone who represented death?
ERICA JONGEvery time I catch myself saying, “Oh no, you shouldn’t try that,” I think, “Yes, I should.”
ERICA JONGThough my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything.
ERICA JONGThere are no atheists on turbulent airplanes.
ERICA JONGFreedom 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.
ERICA JONGPeople always think that history proceeds in a straight line. It doesn’t. Social attitudes don’t change in a straight line.
ERICA JONGDo all women have to keep silent for men to speak? Do all women have to be legless for men to walk?
ERICA JONGI vowed to give up sex, bacon, and air travel if I ever made it back to terra firma in one piece.
ERICA JONGIt’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 JONGI myself hate that old Hemingwayesque paradigm of the writer as prizefighter and I have tried hard to create an alternate one for myself.
ERICA JONGIs perception equivalent to existence?
ERICA JONGMy 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 JONGHumor is one of the most serious tools we have for dealing with impossible situations.
ERICA JONGWhat I would like to give my daughter is freedom. And this is something that must be given by example, not by exhortation.
ERICA JONG