As women got little crumbs of power, men began to act paranoid – as if we’d disabled them utterly.
ERICA JONGAs women got little crumbs of power, men began to act paranoid – as if we’d disabled them utterly.
ERICA JONGJealousy is all the fun you think they had.
ERICA JONGThere is no loneliness like the loneliness of a dead marriage.
ERICA JONGLife has no plot. It is by far more interesting than anything you can say about it.
ERICA JONGDo 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.
ERICA JONGMotherhood cannot finally be delegated.
ERICA JONGWe were not human beings going through spiritual experiences; we were spiritual beings going through human experiences, in order to grow.
ERICA JONGThough my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything.
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 JONGConflict is the soul of literature.
ERICA JONGWhy does life need evidence of life?
ERICA JONGTo name oneself is the first act of both the poet and the revolutionary.
ERICA JONGEvery time I catch myself saying, “Oh no, you shouldn’t try that,” I think, “Yes, I should.”
ERICA JONGIf sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it’s because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that’s the most revolutionary insight of all.
ERICA JONGPeople always think that history proceeds in a straight line. It doesn’t. Social attitudes don’t change in a straight line.
ERICA JONGEvery time we hit an air pocket and the plane dropped about five hundred feet (leaving my stomach in my mouth)
ERICA JONG