Erica Jong Quotes

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.

I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged.... I had poems which were rewritten so many times I suspect it was just a way of avoiding sending them out.

Oh Doris Lessing, my dear -- your Anna is wrong about orgasms. They are no proof of love -- any more than that other Anna's fall under the wheels of that Russian train was a proof of love. It's all female shenanigans, cultural mishegoss, conditioning, brainwashing and male mythologizing. What does a woman want? She wants what she has been told she ought to want. Anna Wulf wants orgasm, Anna Karenina, death. Orgasm is no proof of anything. Orgasm is proof of orgasm. Someday every woman will have orgasms -- like every family has color TV -- and we can all get on with the real business of life.

There is a rhythm to the ending of a marriage, just like the rhythm of a courtship -- only backward. You try to start again but get into blaming over and over. Finally you are both worn out, exhausted, hopeless. Then lawyers are called in to pick clean the corpses. The death has occurred much earlier.

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.

Fear is a sign-usually a sign that I'm doing something right.

There are no atheists on turbulent airplanes.

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

It takes courage to lead a life. Any life.

I have lived my life according to this principle: If I'm afraid of it, then I must do it.