652 Quotes by Erica Jong

A concern with 'public morality' is - if not the last refuge of a scoundrel - the first foray of the fascist.

Men have always detested women's gossip because they suspect the truth: their measurements are being taken and compared.

Isn't that the problem? That women have been swindled for centuries into substituting adornment for love, fashion (as it were) for passion?

What I would like to give my daughter is freedom. And this is something that must be given by example, not by exhortation.

If there's anything the world disdains more than uppity young women, it's uppity old women. Dying young has always been a woman's best career move.

If we ban whatever offends any group in our diverse society, we will soon have no art, no culture, no humor, no satire. Satire is by its nature offensive. So is much art and political discourse. The value of these expressions far outweighs their risk.

You reach a point in life where you realize that you might as well do what you need to do, because your being loved or not being loved is really a function of the people you encounter and not of yourself. That is an immensely liberating insight.

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

It took me years 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.