Explore Quotes by Erica Jong

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 we can be sufficient unto ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs.

I think that the joy of writing a novel is the self-exploratio n that emerges and also that wonderful feeling of playing God with the characters. When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish. ... I think the most important thing for a writer is to be locked in a study.

Few women see power as an end in itself. The point of power is the freedom to cultivate roses.

Women are individuals in parenting, and why not?

You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.

Compose with utter freedom and edit with utter discipline.

I am not quite sure how writing changes things, but I know that it does. It is indirect-like the trails of earthworms aerating the earth. It is not always deliberate-like the tails of glowing dust dragged by comets.

If, every day, I dare to remember that I am here on loan, that this house, this hillside, these minutes are all leased to me, not given, I will never despair.

A new dog never replaces an old dog, it merely expands the heart.

We find our calling or it finds us, and it's a sin against the fates not to use your talent when you have it.

I've kept journals at many times in my life starting from when I was about 13 or 14. But it's boring and contrived to keep a journal every day. Better to write as the mood strikes.

I am old enough to know that laughter, not anger, is the true revelation.

What I would like to give my daughter is freedom. And this is something that must be given by example, not exhortation. Freedom is a loose leash, license to be different from your mother and still be loved...Freedom is...not insisting that your daughter share your limitations. Freedom also means letting your daughter reject you when she needs to and come back when she needs to. Freedom is unconditional love.

The most important education you get is your own - the one you learn in solitude.

She was mine and not-mine all at once. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and the most terrifying.

The most important thing for a writer is to be locked in a study.

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.

Always do the things you fear the most. Courage is an acquired taste, like caviar.

The hardest part is believing in yourself at the notebook stage. It is like believing in dreams in the morning.

Many people today believe that cynicism requires courage. Actually, cynicism is the height of cowardice. It is innocence and open-heartednes s that requires the true courage -- however often we are hurt as a result of it.