Erica Jong

Poetry is what we turn to in the most emotional moments of our life - when a beloved friend dies, when a baby is born or when we fall in love.

Often I find that poems predict what I'm going to do later in my own writing, and often I find that poems predict my life. So I think poetry is the most intense expression of feeling that we have.

I thought to spend my declining years writing poetry and teaching - but that won't pay the Bergdorf's bill. I think I'll move to somewhere life is cheaper.

Poetry is the language we speak in the most terrifying or ecstatic passages of our lives. But the very word poetry scares people. They think of their grade school teachers reciting 'Hiawatha' and they groan.

I guess the thing that I'm most proud of is that I kept on writing poetry. I understand that poetry is sort of the source of everything I do. It's the source of my creativity.

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 Thanatos. Those are the only subjects. And how Eros and Thanatos interweave.

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.

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.

My grandchildren are fabulous and funny.

Men and women, women and men. It will never work.

You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.

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

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.

Famous people complain about fame, but they never want to give it back, myself included.

Women are individuals in parenting, and why not?

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 everything you risk even more.

Everyone has a talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark places where it leads.

I was afraid to write Fear of Flying ergo I had to write it. I have lived my life according to this principle: If I'm afraid of it then I must do it.