Erica Jong

Pleasure is terrifying because it breaks down the boundaries between people. Embracing passion means living with fear.

Erica Jong

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.

Erica Jong

Poetry is what we turn to in the most emotional moments of our life – when a beloved friend dies, when a baby is born or when we fall in love.

Erica Jong

Pregnancy seemed like a tremendous abdication of control. Something growing inside you which would eventually usurp your life.

Erica Jong

Sadly, because of the enormous gap between rich and poor, some mothers can afford helpers, but many can’t. Those who can would be kinder to refrain from criticizing other women.

Erica Jong

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

Erica Jong

Silence is the bluntest of blunt instruments. It seems to hammer you into the ground. It drives you deeper and deeper into your own guilt. It makes the voices inside your head accuse you more viciously than any outside voices ever could.

Erica Jong

Singularity shows something wrong in the mind.

Erica Jong

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

Erica Jong

That was probably the mistake of my generation, that we thought that having sex with anyone would be intimate and it wasn’t.

Erica Jong