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" Women's books are kind of discriminated against. If a man writes a book about his family stories, people think of it as literature. If it's a woman, she's 'spilling her guts,' and it's not art. "

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" In poetry you can express almost inexpressible feelings. You can express the pain of loss, you can express love. People always turn to poetry when someone they love dies, when they fall in love. "

Erica Jong

Love

Fall

Poetry

" My generation was not only maligned in book reviews and attacked in graduate school but we lived to see our adored and adorable daughters wonder why feminism had become a dirty word. "

" I remember everything but forgive anyway. "

" 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. "

" Perhaps all artists were, in a sense, housewives: tenders of the earth household. "

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

Erica Jong

You

Risk

" My grandchildren are fabulous and funny. "

" We all parent the best we can. Being human, we're ambivalent. We want perfection for our babies, but we also need sleep. "

" At certain historic moments, grandparents took on childrearing responsibilities. In many cultures, they still do. Chinese grandparents who are able to retire at 55 are seen all over Beijing bouncing grandbabies. In the United States, we can't afford to retire at 55. "

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

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

Erica Jong

Dark

Talent

" Ken, my husband, just smelled like he belonged to me. I'm not talking about hygiene. I'm talking about when you hug him, he either feels like a member of your tribe or not. It's their scent. "

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

" I know so many women in their fifties, sixties and seventies who delight in being on their own. It's amazing. They don't see any stigma attached to it. We don't need a man to prove our identity anymore. "

" I have a very sensitive nose. I identify with dogs. I understand the world through my nose. "

" Women are individuals in parenting, and why not? "

" When I met my husband, I refused to invite him home for Passover because I was embarrassed my mother might serve all the catered dishes in the wrong order. "

" What are the sources of poetry? Love and death and the paradox of love and death. All poetry from the beginning is about Eros and Thanatos. Those are the only subjects. And how Eros and Thanatos interweave. "

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

Erica Jong

Feel

Man

" I don't think there's just one person for everyone. It would be very hard for me to be with a guy who was not bright or funny. And he'd have to see the absurdities of the world, not exactly as I see them necessarily. "

Erica Jong

See

Funny

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

" I'm interested in what happens to people when they get into that publicity machine. We tend to think things have changed, but there's still a deep sexism underlying the way women are treated publicly. "

" The problem with feminism in the second wave was that we fought so much among ourselves, and I think we did so much damage to the movement... and I think the next wave, the third wave, is women mentoring younger women and women helping younger women to enter the political process and the writing world. "

" Women are not the richer sex. Women are not equal in society. "

" I thought to spend my declining years writing poetry and teaching - but that won't pay the Bergdorf's bill. I think I'll move to somewhere life is cheaper. "

" Where is Hollywood located? Chiefly between the ears. In that part of the American brain lately vacated by God. "

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

" 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. "

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

" Anybody who instantly goes from being a poet and a graduate student to being a public figure has to be in a state of shock. First people want to praise you, and then they want to attack you. No one can prepare you for it. "