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
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.
My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher." - Socrates (470-399 B.C.) "Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't
Writing has often been accompanied by terror, silences, and then wild bursts of private laughter that suddenly make all the dread seem worthwhile.
The aim of my writing is to utterly remove the distance between author and reader so that the book becomes a sort of semipermeable membrane through which feelings, ideas, nutrients pass ...
It's horrible getting older. I mean, it's wonderful because you see the circles of life get completed. But it's horrible losing your looks.
It's important to know what you're going to spend your life on, and the only way you're going to find that is by connecting with the force inside yourself.
I don't think that sex necessarily produces intimacy.
And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.
Though my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything.
We all parent the best we can. Being human, we're ambivalent. We want perfection for our babies, but we also need sleep.
A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive.
They keep saying the right person will come along. I think mine got hit by a truck.
biography is essentially a collaborative art, the latest biographer collaborating with all those who wrote earlier.
As a reader, I want a book to kidnap me into its world. Its world must make my so-called real world seem flimsy. Its world must lure me to return. When I close the book, I should feel bereft.