Erica Jong Quotes

"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't."

"Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own."

"And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."

"Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more."

"Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy gets the Catholic Church. America gets Hollywood."

"Everyone has a talent, what is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads."

"Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads."

"Fame means millions of people have the wrong idea of who you are."

"Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed."

"Growing up female in America. What a liability! You grew up with your ears full of cosmetic ads, love songs, advice columns, whoreoscopes, Hollywood gossip, and moral dilemmas on the level of TV soap operas. What litanies the advertisers of the good life chanted at you! What curious catechisms!"

"He who can take advice is sometimes superior to him who can give it."

"I have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back."

"I have not ceased being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me. I have accepted fear as part of life specifically fear of change and fear of the unknown;and I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says, turn back, turn back,you'll die if you venture too far."

"I write lustily and humorously. It isn't calculated; it's the way I think. I've invented a writing style that expresses who I am."

"If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it's because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that's the most revolutionary insight of all."

"If you don't risk anything, you risk even more."

"In a bad marriage, friends are the invisible glue. If we have enough friends, we may go on for years, intending to leave, talking about leaving - instead of actually getting up and leaving."

"It is the city of mirrors, the city of mirages, at once solid and liquid, at once air and stone."

"Jealousy is all the fun you think they had."

"Men and women, women and men. It will never work."

"Men have always detested women's gossip because they suspect the truth: their measurements are being taken and compared."

"Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man."

"Singularity shows something wrong in the mind."

"Solitude is un-American."

"Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame."

"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."

"The trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."

"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."

"You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame."