Memory is the most transient of all possessions. And when it goes, it leaves as few traces as stars that have disappeared.
ERICA JONGAmbivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own.
More Erica Jong Quotes
-
-
We were not human beings going through spiritual experiences; we were spiritual beings going through human experiences, in order to grow.
ERICA JONG -
The camera creates a magical transformation. It’s not enough to exist; we must chronicle that existence. …
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 -
Our empathy for others as an excuse to underpay us.
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 -
Humor is one of the most serious tools we have for dealing with impossible situations.
ERICA JONG -
People always think that history proceeds in a straight line. It doesn’t. Social attitudes don’t change in a straight line.
ERICA JONG -
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.
ERICA JONG -
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 JONG -
The trick is not how much pain you feel – but how much joy you feel
ERICA JONG -
Perhaps all artists were, in a sense, housewives: tenders of the earth household.
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 book is a box brimming with incendiary material. The reader strikes the match.
ERICA JONG -
There is no loneliness like the loneliness of a dead marriage.
ERICA JONG -
What was the point of spending your life with someone you were always looking for ways to decieve?
ERICA JONG -
The soul is awakened through service.
ERICA JONG -
You are always naked when you start writing; you are always as if you had never written anything before; you are always a beginner.
ERICA JONG -
Compose with utter freedom and edit with utter discipline.
ERICA JONG -
Silence is the bluntest of blunt instruments.
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 -
Keeping a journal implies hope.
ERICA JONG -
And what if I don’t want forgiveness?
ERICA JONG -
Is perception equivalent to existence?
ERICA JONG -
If 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 JONG -
Shakespeare wrote without knowing he would become Shakespeare
ERICA JONG -
A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive.
ERICA JONG