652 Quotes by Erica Jong

Mothers and daughters – it’s a comedy, but also a tragedy. We fill our daughters with all the chutzpah we wish for ourselves. We want them to be free as we were not. And then we resent them for being so free. We resent them for being what we have made! With granddaughters, it’s so much easier. And great-granddaughters.

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

Glitch or not, we seem to need a power greater than ourselves. We seem to need enormous shadows of divinity stalking us. We know we are weak. Alcoholics are, above all, lonely, fearful pepole who make a fetish of loneliness, who think they – we – are too good to be part of the human race. And we have to be humbled to remember who we are – stumbling human beings, more ape than angel.

You’re afraid of criticism,′ she says. ‘But criticism is a sign of life! You know who doesn’t get criticized? Nonentities! Only the dead escape criticism.

In a bad marriage, friends are the invisible glue. If we have enough friends, we may go on for years, intending to leave, talking about leaving - instead of actually getting up and leaving.

Betrayal does that betrays the betrayer.

Poems, like dreams, are a sort of royal road to the unconcious. They tell you what your secret self cannot express.

I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: Turn back.

Women tend to be preservers of the social structure, of marriage. They don't want to upset their husbands or their significant others. They don't want to hurt people