Quotes By Erica Jong

I've never been able to control my public image.

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

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

No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.

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

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's hard to do fiction and nonfiction simultaneously.

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

Is a currency worth anything if no one wants it? We used to buy shoes in Italy. Remember?

I don't cook. My mother didn't cook. My daughter doesn't cook.

When I was a ten-year old bookworm and used to kiss the dust jacket pictures of authors as if they were icons, it used to amaze me that these remote people could provoke me to love.

Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.

Poetry is the language we speak in the most terrifying or ecstatic passages of our lives. But the very word poetry scares people. They think of their grade school teachers reciting 'Hiawatha' and they groan.

My grandchildren are fabulous and funny.

I remember everything but forgive anyway.

I have forgotten my rave reviews and memorized my vicious ones - like most writers.

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

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

Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.

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

I never became a writer for the money. I am a poet first. Even getting published is a miracle for poets.