Erica Jong

As a past president of the Writers Guild, I think women shouldn't write for free. Maybe you have to do it for a time, to make a reputation, but I think the idea of giving your work away is the beginning of authors not being able to make a living.

All my forebears worked for a living. My grandfather painted portraits. My mother too. My aunt painted seascapes.

Is a currency worth anything if no one wants it? We used to buy shoes in Italy. Remember?

I think feminism means what it has always meant - women want to use all their gifts, all their talents and be judged impartially for them. I don't think feminism has ever meant anything else.

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

I think that Sappho expresses the orphaned part of ourselves. The orphaned part of ourselves that reaches out to passion for completion. That reaches out to motherhood for completion.

Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy the Church. America Hollywood.

I believe that women should live for love, for motherhood and for intellect, and I believe we shouldn't have to choose. And I believe that's always been difficult for women, to express themselves intellectually, maternally, and passionately.

Friends love misery, in fact. Sometimes, especially if we are too lucky or too successful or too pretty, our misery is the only thing that endears us to our friends.

Feminism is teaching. I've gotten a lot of pleasure pushing younger writers that I've met and worked with.

Where is Hollywood located? Chiefly between the ears. In that part of the American brain lately vacated by God.

Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.

Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.

Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own.

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.

I know so many women in their fifties, sixties and seventies who delight in being on their own. It's amazing. They don't see any stigma attached to it. We don't need a man to prove our identity anymore.

When I was a ten-year old bookworm and used to kiss the dust jacket pictures of authors as if they were icons, it used to amaze me that these remote people could provoke me to love.

The problem with feminism in the second wave was that we fought so much among ourselves, and I think we did so much damage to the movement... and I think the next wave, the third wave, is women mentoring younger women and women helping younger women to enter the political process and the writing world.

Ken, my husband, just smelled like he belonged to me. I'm not talking about hygiene. I'm talking about when you hug him, he either feels like a member of your tribe or not. It's their scent.

I think professionalism is important, and professionalism means you get paid.