Erica Jong
Erica Jong
Erica Jongis an American novelist and poet, known particularly for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying. The book became famously controversial for its attitudes towards female sexuality and figured prominently in the development of second-wave feminism. According to Washington Post, it has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth26 March 1942
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I do a lot of teaching... and so I think I know how hard it is for young writers, how they have to work two jobs to survive.
I've never been able to control my public image.
I guess the thing that I'm most proud of is that I kept on writing poetry. I understand that poetry is sort of the source of everything I do. It's the source of my creativity.
You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.
writers do not choose their subjects; their subjects choose them.
It's hard to do fiction and nonfiction simultaneously.
Throughout much of history, women writers have capitulated to male standards, and have paid too much heed to what Virginia Woolf calls "the angel in the house." She is that little ghost who sits on one's shoulder while one writes and whispers, "Be nice, don't say anything that will embarrass the family, don't say anything your man will disapprove of ..." [ellipsis in original] The "angel in the house" castrates one's creativity because it deprives one of essential honesty, and many women writers have yet to win the freedom to be honest with themselves.
what was time but a convention, a habit of mind, a custom of dress?
each of us only feels the torn lining of his own coat and sees the wholeness of the other person's.
Women are individuals in parenting, and why not?
Whenever I go anywhere but Italy for a vacation, I always feel vaguely disappointed, as if I have made a mistake.
... poetry is fired by love ...
He who can take advice is sometimes superior to him who can give it.
I don't think there's just one person for everyone. It would be very hard for me to be with a guy who was not bright or funny. And he'd have to see the absurdities of the world, not exactly as I see them necessarily.