The collection / 90 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

We're programmed for suffering, not joy. The masochism is built in at a very early age. You're supposed to work and suffer - and the trouble is: you believe it.

Erica Jong / quote

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02Undated

I had forgotten how awful it was to be a woman alone--the leering glances, the catcalls, the offers of help which you dared not accept for fear of incurring a sexual debt. The awful sense of vulnerability. No wonder I had gone from man to man and always wound up married. How could I have left Bennett? How could I have forgotten?

Erica Jong / quote

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03Undated

I don't believe what you believe," I yelled, "and I don't respect your beliefs and I don't respect you for holding them. If you can honestly make a statement like that about the power behind the throne, how can you possibly understand anything about me or the things I'm struggling with? I don't want to live by the things you live by, I don't want that kind of life and I don't see why I should be judged by its standards.

Erica Jong / quote

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04Undated

What all the ads and whoreoscopes seemed to imply was that if only you were narcissistic enough, if only you took proper care of your smells, your har, your boobs, your eyelashes, your armpits, your crotch, your stars, your scars, and your choice of Scotch in bars - you would meet a beautiful, powerful, potent, and rich man who would satisfy every longing, fill every hole, make your heart skip a beat (or stand still), make you misty, and fly you to the moon (preferably on gossamer wings), where you would live totally satisfied forever.

Erica Jong / quote

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05Undated

When women have so absorbed the disease of sexism that they themselves can inflict it on each other, we clearly have a perfect, self-replenishing machine for the continuation of sexism. Unable to turn our assertiveness against men, we turn it against each other. Thus we remain stuck in the troubles we always had. It is imperative we renovate the machine -- no, not renovate it, but smash it entirely, so that we allow women to be all they need to be.

Erica Jong / quote

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06Undated

Why are women so ungenerous to other women? Is it because we have been tokens for so long? Or is there a deeper animosity we owe it to ourselves to ex

Erica Jong / quote

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07Undated

Naomi Wolf dares to explode the myth of 'victim feminism' and pleads for allowing women to be as full of good and bad desires as men, as avid for sexual fulfilment and power as men, but held back by the twin myths of good-girlism and sentimental sisterhood. Though she is perhaps too sanguine about women quickly overcoming their fear of power, Wolf fills me with hope because I see her analysis as having shattered the false categories that imprisoned my generation. Women do not have to agree about everything to join in alliance with each other to promote female power. Women do not have to cast out their inner bad girl to assert their right to power. Women do not have to cast out their sexuality to be 'good sisters'.

Erica Jong / quote

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08Undated

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

Erica Jong / quote

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09Undated

It's only when you're forbidden to talk about the future that you suddenly realize how much the future normally occupies the present, how much of daily life is usually spent making plans and attempting to control the future. Never mind that you have no control over it. The idea of the future is our greatest entertainment, amusement, and time-killer.

Erica Jong / quote

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10Undated

Tears are a form of communication - like speech - and require a listener.

Erica Jong / quote

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11Undated

It was easy enough to kill yourself in a fit of despair. It was easy enough to play the martyr. It was harder to do nothing. To endure your life. To wait.

Erica Jong / quote

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12Undated

There is nothing fiercer than a failed artist. The energy remains, but having no outlet, it implodes in a great fart of rage which smokes up all the inner windows of the soul.

Erica Jong / quote

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13Undated

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

Erica Jong / quote

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14Undated

Because When you write about people, you inevitably offend--but if you write about animals, the evil do not recognize themselves but the good understand immediately.

Erica Jong / quote

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15Undated

...filled her memory bank with shiny coins.

Erica Jong / quote

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16Undated

Without the gods, how would I sing?' I asked.With your own voice,' he said.

Erica Jong / quote

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17Undated

But if the gods do not exist at all - then we are lost,' I said.On the contrary - we are found!' said Aesop.But when we are afraid, who can we turn to, if not the gods?'Ourselves. We turn to ourselves anyway. We only pretend there are gods and that they care about us. It is a comforting falsehood.

Erica Jong / quote

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18Undated

In a certain sense, you do write to seduce the world, but when it happens, you begin to feel like a whore. The disparity between your life and your work turns out to be as great as ever. And the people seduced by your work are usually seduced by all the wrong reasons.

Erica Jong / quote

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19Undated

...readers who think I have answers when all I have are a few pointed questions...

Erica Jong / quote

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20Undated

How did I get to be a grown-up? At times, I find myself still sitting on the hillside, plotting revenge against the adult world.

Erica Jong / quote

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21Undated

Young women dream of romance and passion as men dream of conquest because those dreams are necessary goads to leaving home and growing up.

Erica Jong / quote

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22Undated

she died of internal weeping

Erica Jong / quote

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23Undated

There's nothing good about being ordinary. People don't respect you for it. People run after people who are different, who have confidence in their own taste, who don't run with the herd. There is nothing gained by giving in to the pressures of group vulgarity.

Erica Jong / quote

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24Undated

You're afraid of criticism,' she says. 'But criticism is a sign of life! You know who doesn't get criticized? Nonentities! Only the dead escape criticism.

Erica Jong / quote

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