Erica Jong

(26 March 1942 / New York City)

poet Erica Jong
#181 on top 500 poets

Erica Jong Quotes

  • ''Where is Hollywood located? Chiefly between the ears. In that part of the American brain lately vacated by God.''
    Erica Jong (b. 1942), U.S. author. "Hello to Hollywood ...," epigraph, How To Save Your Own Life (1977).
    12 person liked.
    		9 person did not like.
  • ''Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.''
    Erica Jong (b. 1942), U.S. author. How To Save Your Own Life, epigraph to "Bennett tells all in Woodstock ... ," (1977).
    15 person liked.
    		6 person did not like.
  • ''To name oneself is the first act of both the poet and the revolutionary. When we take away the right to an individual name, we symbolically take away the right to be an individual. Immigration officials did this to refugees; husbands routinely do it to wives.''
    Erica Jong (b. 1942), U.S. author. How To Save Your Own Life, epigraph to "My posthumous life ...," (1977).
    14 person liked.
    		6 person did not like.
  • ''Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy gets the Catholic Church. America gets Hollywood.''
    Erica Jong (b. 1942), U.S. author. "Take the Red-Eye....," Epigraph, How To Save Your Own Life (1977).
    6 person liked.
    		1 person did not like.
  • ''Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.''
    Erica Jong (b. 1942), U.S. author. "The Artist as Housewife," The First Ms. Reader, ed. Francine Kragbrun (1972).
    10 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
  • ''Perhaps all artists were, in a sense, housewives: tenders of the earth household.''
    Erica Jong (b. 1942), U.S. author. "The Artist as Housewife," The First Ms Reader, ed. Francine Kragbrun (1972).
    2 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
  • ''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.''
    Erica Jong (b. 1942), U.S. author. "The Artist as Housewife," The First Ms. Reader, ed. Francine Kragbrun (1972).
    3 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
  • ''Men and women, women and men. It will never work.''
    Erica Jong (b. 1942), U.S. author. The narrator (Isadora Wing), in Fear of Flying, ch. 16 (1973).
    8 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
  • ''Men have always detested women's gossip because they suspect the truth: their measurements are being taken and compared.''
    Erica Jong (b. 1942), U.S. author. The narrator (Isadora Wing), in Fear of Flying, ch. 6 (1973).
    3 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
  • ''Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.''
    Erica Jong (b. 1942), U.S. author. The narrator (Isadora Wing), in Fear of Flying, ch. 6 (1973).
    3 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.

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Best Poem of Erica Jong

After The Earthquake

After the first astounding rush,
after the weeks at the lake,
the crystal, the clouds, the water lapping the rocks,
the snow breaking under our boots like skin,
& the long mornings in bed. . .

After the tangos in the kitchen,
& our eyes fixed on each other at dinner,
as if we would eat with our lids,
as if we would swallow each other. . .

I find you still
here beside me in bed,
(while my pen scratches the pad
& your skin glows as you read)
& my whole life so mellowed & changed

that at times I cannot remember
the crimp in my heart that ...

Read the full of After The Earthquake

The Poet Fears Failure

The poet fears failure
& so she says
"Hold on pen--
what if the critics
hate me?"
& with that question
she blots out more lines
than any critic could.

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