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"It was easy enough to kill yourself in a fit of despair. It was easy enough to play the martyr. It was harder to do nothing. To endure your life. To wait."
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"Removing the finish line is a useful tactic if your goal is to just keep running the race."
"During my worst timeson the park benchesin the jailsor living withwhoresI always had this certaincontentment-I wouldn't call ithappiness-it was more of an innerbalancethat settled forwhatever was occuringand it helped in thefactoriesand when relationshipswent wrongwith thegirls.it helpedthrough thewars and thehangoversthe backalley fightsthehospitals.to awaken in a cheap roomin a strange city andpull up the shade-this was the craziest kind ofcontentmentand to walk across the floorto an old dresser with acracked mirror-see myself, ugly,grinning at it all.what matters most ishow well youwalk through thefire."
"Sometimes when everything seems atits worstwhen all conspiresand gnawsand the hours, days, weeksyearsseem wasted " stretched there upon my bedin the darklooking upward at the ceilingi get what many will consider anobnoxious thought:it's still nice to beBukowski."
Explore more quotes by 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."
"All writing problems are psychological problems. Blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged. If you imagine the world listening, you'll never write a line. That's why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone."
"Most people in this country are looking for literature that is useful. They feel that just exploring their feelings is good enough - they should be reading about leveraged buy-outs or how to get thin. We live in a culture that is so absolutely, madly focused on commercialism and on creating money and completely turned away from any other kind of creative value. People don't generally turn to poetry unless they're bereaved or have fallen in love. Or in adolescence, when their feelings are very strong and turbulent. I think most of us are dying for lack of spirit in this culture."
"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."
"Nothing quite has reality for me till I write it all down--revising and embellishing as I go. I'm always waiting for things to be over so I can get home and commit them to paper."
"But if the gods do not exist at all - then we are lost,' I said.On the contrary - we are found!' said Aesop.But when we are afraid, who can we turn to, if not the gods?'Ourselves. We turn to ourselves anyway. We only pretend there are gods and that they care about us. It is a comforting falsehood."
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