A poem (surely someone has said this before) is a one-night stand, a short story a love affair, and a novel a marriage.
ERICA JONGA poem (surely someone has said this before) is a one-night stand, a short story a love affair, and a novel a marriage.
ERICA JONGAmbivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own.
ERICA JONGImages are … a kind of emotional shorthand.
ERICA JONGYoung people never believe in the possibility of their own deaths. That’s one reason old men can send them to war.
ERICA JONGI want you. I want you. I want you. Anything to avoid saying: I love you.
ERICA JONGI do believe that in every age there are people whose consciousness transcends their own time and that these people, whether fictional or historical, are those with whom we most closely identify and those about whom we most enjoy reading.
ERICA JONGWe were not human beings going through spiritual experiences; we were spiritual beings going through human experiences, in order to grow.
ERICA JONGI 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 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.
ERICA JONGIf you imagine the world listening, you’ll never write a line. That’s why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.
ERICA JONGIt is the nature of those books we call classics to wait patiently on the shelf for us to grow into them.
ERICA JONGA new dog never replaces an old dog; it merely expands the heart. If you have loved many dogs, your heart is very big.
ERICA JONGThough my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything.
ERICA JONGThe future is merely a shadow which blocks out the joys of the present and emphasizes the miseries of the past.
ERICA JONGMemory is the most transient of all possessions. And when it goes, it leaves as few traces as stars that have disappeared.
ERICA JONGDivorce is my generation’s coming of age ceremony – a ritual scarring that makes anything that happens afterward seem bearable.
ERICA JONG