We came to realize how little married couples see of each other once they crawl in the bourgeois box.

— Erica Jong

We're programmed for suffering, not joy. The masochism is built in at a very early age. You're supposed to work and suffer - and the trouble is: you believe it.

— Erica Jong

What all the ads and horoscopes seemed to imply was that if only you were narcissistic enough, if only you took proper care of your smells, your heir, your boobs, your eyelashes, your armpits, your crotch, your stars, your scars, and 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 wings), where you would live totally satisfied forever.

— Erica Jong

What are the sources of poetry? Love and death and the paradox of love and death. All poetry from the beginning is about Eros and Khanates. Those are the only subjects. And how Eros and Khanates interweave.

— Erica Jong

When I'm sitting at the desk not being able to write line one, it's silence and despair! It's not so easy to put the pen to the legal pad or type the first sentence on the computer screen.

— Erica Jong

When women have so absorbed the disease of sexism that they themselves can inflict it on each other, we clearly have a perfect, self-replenishing machine for the continuation of sexism. Unable to turn our assertiveness against men, we turn it against each other. Thus, we remain stuck in the troubles we always had. It is imperative we renovate the machine -- no, not renovate it, but smash it entirely, so that we allow women to be all they need to be.

— Erica Jong

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 ex

— Erica Jong

Without the gods, how would I sing?' I asked. With your own voice,' he said.

— Erica Jong

Women are individuals in parenting, and why not?

— Erica Jong

Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.

— Erica Jong