Quotes by Erica Jong

“...readers who think I have answers when all I have are a few pointed questions...”

“Because When you write about people, you inevitably offend--but if you write about animals, the evil do not recognize themselves but the good understand immediately.”

“How did I get to be a grown-up? At times, I find myself still sitting on the hillside, plotting revenge against the adult world.”

“Young women dream of romance and passion as men dream of conquest because those dreams are necessary goads to leaving home and growing up.”

“she died of internal weeping”

“There's nothing good about being ordinary. People don't respect you for it. People run after people who are different, who have confidence in their own taste, who don't run with the herd. There is ...”

“You're afraid of criticism,' she says. 'But criticism is a sign of life! You know who doesn't get criticized? Nonentities! Only the dead escape criticism.”

“And what is laughter anyway? Changing the angle of vision.”

“The words carry their own momentum. A confession in motion tends to stay in motion. Newton's first law of jealousy.”

“Rendall's first law of jealousy: jealousy does the cock harder and pussy wetter.”

“Women are individuals in parenting, and why not?”

“The stones themselves are thick with history, and those cats that dash through the alleyways must surely be the ghosts of the famous dead in feline disguise.”

“Famous people complain about fame, but they never want to give it back, myself included.”

“Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.”

“You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.”

“Men and women, women and men. It will never work.”

“Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.”

“My grandchildren are fabulous and funny.”

“No 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.”

“What are the sources of poetry? Love and death and the paradox of love and death. All poetry from the beginning is about Eros and Thanatos. Those are the only subjects. And how Eros and Thanatos in...”