Erica Jong quotes - page 6

My grandchildren are fabulous and funny. (Erica Jong)
I'm interested in what happens to people when they get into that publicity machine. We tend to think things have changed, but there's still a deep sexism underlying the way women are treated publicly. View quote
Erica Jong
Women really must have equal pay for equal work, equality in work at home, and reproductive choices. Men must press for these things also. They must cease to see them as 'women's issues' and learn that they are everyone's issues essential to survival on planet Earth. View quote
Erica Jong
At certain historic moments, grandparents took on childrearing responsibilities. In many cultures, they still do. Chinese grandparents who are able to retire at 55 are seen all over Beijing bouncing grandbabies. In the United States, we can't afford to retire at 55. View quote
Erica Jong
Famous people complain about fame, but they never want to give it back, myself included. View quote
Erica Jong
Poetry is the language we speak in the most terrifying or ecstatic passages of our lives. But the very word poetry scares people. They think of their grade school teachers reciting 'Hiawatha' and they groan. View quote
Erica Jong
When I'm sitting at the desk not being able to write line one, it's silence and despair! It's not so easy to put the pen to the legal pad or type the first sentence on the computer screen. View quote
Erica Jong
When I met my husband, I refused to invite him home for Passover because I was embarrassed my mother might serve all the catered dishes in the wrong order. View quote
Erica Jong
It is for this, partly, that I write. How can I know what I think unless I see what I write. View quote
Erica Jong
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 interweave. View quote
Erica Jong
Sadly, because of the enormous gap between rich and poor, some mothers can afford helpers, but many can't. Those who can would be kinder to refrain from criticizing other women. (Erica Jong)
My generation was not only maligned in book reviews and attacked in graduate school but we lived to see our adored and adorable daughters wonder why feminism had become a dirty word. View quote
Erica Jong
Anybody who instantly goes from being a poet and a graduate student to being a public figure has to be in a state of shock. First people want to praise you, and then they want to attack you. No one can prepare you for it. View quote
Erica Jong
Women are individuals in parenting, and why not? View quote
Erica Jong
I never became a writer for the money. I am a poet first. Even getting published is a miracle for poets. View quote
Erica Jong
Women are not the richer sex. Women are not equal in society. View quote
Erica Jong
Back in the days when men were hunters and chest beaters and women spent their whole lives worrying about pregnancy or dying in childbirth, they often had to be taken against their will. Men complained that women were cold, unresponsive, frigid... They wanted their women wanton. They wanted their women wild. Now women were finally learning to be wanton and wild - and what happened? The men wilted. View quote
Erica Jong
Women's books are kind of discriminated against. If a man writes a book about his family stories, people think of it as literature. If it's a woman, she's 'spilling her guts,' and it's not art. View quote
Erica Jong
Writing is one of the few professions left where you take all the responsibility for what you do. It's really dangerous and ultimately destroys you as a writer if you start thinking about responses to your work or what your audience needs. View quote
Erica Jong
I don't cook. My mother didn't cook. My daughter doesn't cook. View quote
Erica Jong
Surviving meant being born over and over. (Erica Jong)
Beware of the man who denounces woman writers; his penis is tiny and he cannot spell. View quote
Erica Jong
The zipless fuck is absolutely pure. It is free of ulterior motives. There is no power game. The man is not "taking" and the woman is not "giving." View quote
Erica Jong
I don't think that I had any idea that 'Fear of Flying' would become a part of the culture. I had no idea that it would go all over the world and be published in Chinese and Serbo-Croat and so on. View quote
Erica Jong
Women tend to be preservers of the social structure, of marriage. They don't want to upset their husbands or their significant others. They don't want to hurt people. View quote
Erica Jong