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 don't necessarily read everything. I read what I need to read to inspire the book I'm trying to finish.
I don't believe in organized religion. I believe that people should try to connect with their own life force and let it lead them to do with their lives what they will find satisfying.
I know some good marriages-marriages where both people are just trying to get through their days by helping each other, being good to each other.
Every time I catch myself saying, "Oh no, you shouldn't try that," I think, "Yes, I should."
As a seasoned insomniac, I knew sometimes the way to beat sleeplessness was to outwit it: to pretend you didn't care about sleeping. Then sometimes sleep became piqued, like a rejected lover, and crept up to try to seduce you.
As women, we can't look old. We can't be fat. We're supposed to look like the 14-year-old models in Vogue, who are younger and younger and skinnier and skinnier, and they are air-brushed and contoured and Photoshopped.
If you've been a pretty woman and always pursued by lovers, losing that and not having that - it feels like a great loss.
Most sex is not really intimate.
Most sex doesn't really bring people together. You have to reach a certain level of connection, I think, and that's pretty rare.
I think poetry is the best thing I do. It's certainly the purest. I seem to switch gears without too much trouble. Non-fiction is in many ways the easiest to write.
Good sex is a mystery. Perhaps humping and pumping is not a mystery, but good sex is a mystery, and how human beings become truly intimate remains a mystery.
I was always a feminist. My mother was a feminist; my grandmother was a feminist. I always understood women had to fight very hard to do what they wanted to do in the world - that it wasn't an easy choice. But I think the most important part is that we all want the right to be taken seriously as human beings, and to use our talents without reservation, and that's still not possible for women.
Sex just as a drive, as a hormonal drive, is not very interesting.
People are terrified. A lot of them are in relationships that aren't satisfying, and if you tell them they can change their life, they get really scared.