Erica Jong

I do a lot of teaching... and so I think I know how hard it is for young writers, how they have to work two jobs to survive. ”

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

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. ”

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. ”

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. ”

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

Sexism kind of predisposes us to see men's work as more important than women's, and it is a problem, I guess, as writers, we have to change. ”

I'm interested in what happens to people when they get into that publicity machine. We tend to think things have changed, but there's still a deep sexism underlying the way women are treated publicly. ”