No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.
— Erica Jong
Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.
Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.
And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.
Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy the Church. America Hollywood.
Men have always detested women's gossip because they suspect the truth: their measurements are being taken and compared.
You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.
He who can take advice is sometimes superior to him who can give it.
It is the city of mirrors, the city of mirages, at once solid and liquid, at once air and stone.
Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.
There is still the feeling that women's writing is a lesser class of writing, that what goes on in the nursery or the bedroom is not as important as what goes on in the battlefield, that what women know about is a less category of knowledge.
Men and women, women and men. It will never work.
I have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back.
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.
Fame means millions of people have the wrong idea of who you are.
Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own.
If you don't risk anything, you risk even more.
Solitude is un-American.
Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.
Where is Hollywood located? Chiefly between the ears. In that part of the American brain lately vacated by God.
The stones themselves are thick with history, and those cats that dash through the alleyways must surely be the ghosts of the famous dead in feline disguise.
The trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.
Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.
I write lustily and humorously. It isn't calculated; it's the way I think. I've invented a writing style that expresses who I am.
You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.
Singularity shows something wrong in the mind.
Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.
Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.
