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 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.
More Erica Jong Quotes
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Perhaps all artists were, in a sense, housewives: tenders of the earth household.
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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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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.
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The sexuality doesn’t end. It really doesn’t. You’re sexual your whole life, if you’re a sexual person.
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You are always naked when you start writing; you are always as if you had never written anything before; you are always a beginner.
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The trick is not how much pain you feel–but how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain.
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I am old enough to know that laughter, not anger, is the true revelation.
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Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own.
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The parity of women’s health. It’s very depressing to think that you win these rights, but then you have to win them again, and again, and again, and fight the same battles over and over.
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Dogs come into our lives to teach us about love and loyalty. They depart to teach us about loss.
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You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.
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Before things are written down they don’t exist in quite the same way. The act of fixing them in words gives them a kind of currency that can be traded.
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Humor is one of the most serious tools we have for dealing with impossible situations.
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Anger is really disappointed hope.
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How could one create life with someone who represented death?
ERICA JONG