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95136b2
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Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.
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risk
love
fear-of-flying
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Erica Jong |
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7d5e0f3
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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.
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Erica Jong |
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e576f4c
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The ultimate sexist put-down: the prick which lies down on the job. The ultimate weapon in the war between the sexes: the limp prick. The banner of the enemy's encampment: the prick at half-mast. The symbol of the apocalypse: the atomic warhead prick which self-destructs. was the basic inequity which could never be righted: not that the male had a wonderful added attraction called a penis, but that the female had a wonderful all-weather c..
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men
women
humor
sexism
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Erica Jong |
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d4c189e
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Someday every woman will have orgasms- like every family has color TV- and we can all get on with the business of life.
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sex
women
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Erica Jong |
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388d829
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It took me to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the solitude and the terror of failure, and the godawful silence and the white paper. And now that I can take it . . . now that I can finally do it . . . I'm really raring to go. I was in my study writing. I was learning how to go down into myself and salvage bits and pieces of the past. I was learning how to sneak up on the unconscious and how to c..
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feminism
thoughts
writing
insecurity
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Erica Jong |
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a80cfaf
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We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.
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judgement
procrastination
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Erica Jong |
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bbdf7ae
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We drove to the hotel and said goodbye. How hypocritical to go upstairs with a man you don't want to fuck, leave the one you do sitting there alone, and then, in a state of great excitement, fuck the one you don't want to fuck while pretending he's the one you do. That's called fidelity. That's called monogamy. That's called civilization and its discontents.
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monogamy
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Erica Jong |
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8445fcf
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I stand in the mist and cry, thinking of myself standing in the mist and crying, and wondering if I will ever be able to use this experience in a book.
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writing
navelgazing
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Erica Jong |
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8cecc28
|
I tried to keep myself away from him by using con words like "fidelity" and "adultery", by telling myself that he would interfere with my work, that I had him I'd be too happy to write. I tried to tell myself I was hurting Bennett, hurting myself, making a spectacle of myself. I was. But nothing helped. I was possessed. The minute he walked into a room and smiled at me, I was a goner."
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fidelity
cheating
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Erica Jong |
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55ac871
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The zipless fuck is absolutely pure. It is free of ulterior motives. There is no power game . The man is not "taking" and the woman is not "giving." No one is attempting to cuckold a husband or humiliate a wife. No one is trying to prove anything or get anything out of anyone. The zipless fuck is the purest thing there is. And it is rarer than the unicorn. And I have never had one."
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the-zipless-fuck
fear-of-flying
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Erica Jong |
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1e9edda
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Without the gods, how would I sing?' I asked
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inspirational
atheism
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Erica Jong |
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3292f54
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Without the gods, how would I sing?' I asked. With your own voice,' he said.
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inspirational
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Erica Jong |
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b3d71ab
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Beware of books. They are more than innocent assemblages of paper and ink and string and glue. If they are any good, they have the spirit of the author within. Authors are rogues and ruffians and easy lays. They are gluttons for sweets and savories. They devour life and always want more. They have sap, spirit, sex. Books are panderers. The Jews are not wrong to worship books. A real book has pheromones and sprouts grass through its cover.
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reading
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Erica Jong |
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b6fc3d7
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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.
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inspirational
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Erica Jong |
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d60472f
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Life has no plot. It is by far more interesting than anything you can say about it...
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Erica Jong |
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970cb80
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There are no atheists on turbulent airplanes.
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Erica Jong |
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db94020
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Though my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything.
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Erica Jong |
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33336c1
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There is nothing fiercer than a failed artist. The energy remains, but, having no outlet, it implodes in a great black fart of rage which smokes up all the inner windows of the soul. Horrible as successful artists often are, there is nothing crueler or more vain than a failed artist.
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Erica Jong |
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153b669
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I had gone to graduate school because I loved literature, but in graduate school you were not supposed to study literature. You were supposed to study criticism. Some professor wrote a book 'proving' that TOM JONES was really a Marxist parable. Some other professor wrote a book 'proving' that TOM JONES was really a Christian parable. Some other professor wrote a book 'proving' that TOM JONES was really a parable of the Industrial Revolution..
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Erica Jong |
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840eb37
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All writing problems are psychological problems. Blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged. If you imagine the world listening, you'll never write a line. That's why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.
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writing
drafting
writers-block
psychology
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Erica Jong |
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e9b15aa
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Great loves have legs and wings. They are substantial. They do not dissapate so easily... Great loves have staying power. Or so I told myself.
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Erica Jong |
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70573f8
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Women are their own worst enemies. And guilt is the main weapon of self-torture...Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.
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Erica Jong |
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47623ba
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But the fact is, she [the muse] won't be summoned. She alights when it damn well pleases her. She falls in love with one artist, then deserts him for another. She's a real bitch!
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Erica Jong |
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504b678
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I find myself wondering how many other memories are hidden from me in the recesses of my own brain; indeed my own brain will seem to be the last great terra incognita, and I will be filled with wonder at the prospect of some day discovering new worlds there. Imagine the lost continent of Atlantis and all the submerged islands of childhood right there waiting to be found. The inner space we have never adequately explored. The worlds within w..
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Erica Jong |
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8f7fc4f
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Any system was a straightjacket if you insisted on adhering to it so totally and humorlessly.
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religions
systems
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Erica Jong |
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6bbff79
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I see the whole episode in my memory as if it were a very crisply photographed black and white movie. Directed by Bergman perhaps.We are playing ourselves in the movie version. If only we could escape from always having to play ourselves !
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Erica Jong |
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52650cd
|
All natural disasters are comforting because they reaffirm our impotence, in which, otherwise, we might stop believing. At times it is strangely sedative to know the extent of your own powerlessness.
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Erica Jong |
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e202354
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What all the ads and whorescopes seemed to imply was that if only you took proper care of your smells, your hair, your boobs, your eyelashes, your armpits, your crotch, your stars, your scars, 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 w..
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Erica Jong |
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e9b23e8
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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 explore? A publisher...couldn't understand why women were so loath to help each other.... The notion flitted through my mind that somehow, by helping..., I might be hurting my own chances for something or other -- I did not know. If there was room for only one woman poet, another space would b..
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feminism
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Erica Jong |
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de5bf53
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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 im..
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Erica Jong |
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a06025e
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There is a rhythm to the ending...
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Erica Jong |
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f12e643
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Photographs... are the most curious indicators of reality.
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Erica Jong |
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eac3a1e
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Each one an antidote to the one that went before. Each one a reaction, an about-face, a rebound.
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Erica Jong |
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ff78b2e
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I want you. I want you. I want you. Anything to avoid saying: I love you.
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Erica Jong |
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10386a2
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The ultimate sexist put-down: the prick which lies down on the job.
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Erica Jong |
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0cfd650
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Silence is the bluntest of blunt instruments.
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Erica Jong |
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d758e84
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Sheer bitchiness can be a sort of style.
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Erica Jong |
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c054d24
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Exceptional people are often called crazy by the ordinary world.
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Erica Jong |
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608c562
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Everyone's a little crazy when you get inside their head... it's only a matter of degree.
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Erica Jong |
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dbc05b6
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I convinced myself that sadness and compromise were the ways of the world...
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Erica Jong |
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91a8692
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Having a baby with him meant marrying that face forever.
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Erica Jong |
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495b417
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All people believe their suffering is greater than others.
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Erica Jong |
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52b3195
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Humor is a survival tool.
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Erica Jong |
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d412559
|
How could one create life with someone who represented death?
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Erica Jong |