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
People in the land of LaLa look like expensive wax fruit. And they work hard to achieve that look.
Despite all the cynical things writers have said about writing for money, the truth is we write for love. That is why it is so easy to exploit us.
the Lives of Great Men are more oft' at variance with their profess'd Phillosophies than consistent with 'em ...
in freeing myself from the romantic dream of finding another man to come along and rescue me, I learned that no one can rescue me except myself.
In any triangle, who is the betrayer, who the unseen rival, and who the humiliated lover? Oneself, oneself, and no one but oneself!
Silence is the bluntest of blunt instruments. It seems to hammer you into the ground. It drives you deeper and deeper into your own guilt. It makes the voices inside your head accuse you more viciously than any outside voices ever could.
A Soul is partly given, partly wrought; remember always that you are the Maker of your own Soul.
We were not human beings going through spiritual experiences; we were spiritual beings going through human experiences, in order to grow.
Many, many people have done a lot more sexual experimentation than I have.
My generation had Doris Day as a role model, then Gloria Steinem--then Princess Diana. We are the most confused generation.
In a world where women work three times as hard for half as much, our achievement has been denigrated, both marriage and divorce have turned against us, our motherhood has been used as an obstacle to our success, our passion as a trap, our empathy for others as an excuse to underpay us.
I didn't believe in systems. Everything human was imperfect and ultimately absurd. What did I believe in then? In humor. In laughing at systems, at people, at one's self. In laughing even at one's need to laugh all the time. In seeing life as contradictory, many-sided, various, funny, tragic, and with moments of outrageous beauty. In seeing life as a fruitcake, including delicious plums and bad peanuts, but meant to be devoured hungrily all the same because you couldn't feast on the plums without also sometimes being poisoned by the peanuts.
I had been a feminist all my life, but the big problem was how to make your feminism jibe with you unappeasable hunger for male bodies.
My generation of young female writers discovered that we could dictate the form and content of our own fiction.