--- title: "2 Bits and pieces Quotes By Erica Jong" description: "2 Bits and pieces quotes by Erica Jong. Plus more from Erica Jong and more Bits and pieces sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7eb/erica-jong-445_art_it-took-me-years-to-learn-to-sit-at-my-d_1263.jpg" --- > [“It took me years to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the solitude and the terror of failure, and the godawful silence and the white paper. And now…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/it-took-me-years-to-learn-to-sit-at-my-desk-for-more-than-two-minutes/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7eb/erica-jong-445_art_it-took-me-years-to-learn-to-sit-at-my-d_1263.jpg) > [“I was in my study writing. I was learning how to go down into myself and salvage bits and pieces of the past. I was learning how to sneak up on the unconscious and how to catch my seemingly random…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/i-was-in-my-study-writing-i-was-learning-how-to-go-down-into-myself/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4b5/erica-jong-445_bits-and-pieces_i-was-in-my-study-writing-i-was-learning_135032.jpg) ## Other authors on Bits and pieces ## More by Erica Jong > [“It took me years to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/it-took-me-years-to-learn-to-sit-at-my-desk-for-more-than-two-minutes/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [Will you ever? I dont think you will ever fully understand how you've touched my life and made me who I am.I don't think…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/will-you-ever-i-dont-think-you-will-ever-fully-understand-how-you-ve/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [Give advice to your children while they're young enough to believe you know what you're talking about.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/give-advice-to-your-children-while-they-re-young-enough-to-believe/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [Perhaps all artists were, in a sense, housewives: tenders of the earth household.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/perhaps-all-artists-were-in-a-sense-housewives-tenders-of-the-earth/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [I have lived my life according to this principle: If I'm afraid of it, then I must do it.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/i-have-lived-my-life-according-to-this-principle-if-i-m-afraid-of-it/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [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…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/i-thought-to-spend-my-declining-years-writing-poetry-and-teaching-but/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [“Naomi Wolf dares to explode the myth of 'victim feminism' and pleads for allowing women to be as full of good and bad desires…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/naomi-wolf-dares-to-explode-the-myth-of-victim-feminism-and-pleads/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [I knew I was in England by the smell.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/i-knew-i-was-in-england-by-the-smell/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [The Lives of Great Men are more oft' at variance with their profess'd Phillosophies than consistent with 'em.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/the-lives-of-great-men-are-more-oft-at-variance-with-their-profess-d/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [Women's books are kind of discriminated against. If a man writes a book about his family stories, people think of it as literature. If…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/women-s-books-are-kind-of-discriminated-against-if-a-man-writes-a/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [Many, many people have done a lot more sexual experimentation than I have.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/many-many-people-have-done-a-lot-more-sexual-experimentation-than-i/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [“Is life much too long for an immortal?”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/is-life-much-too-long-for-an-immortal/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [Don't ye know that ev'ry Soul on Earth feels itself to be an Orphan?](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/don-t-ye-know-that-ev-ry-soul-on-earth-feels-itself-to-be-an-orphan/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [Critics write out of intellectual exercise, not poets. Poets write straight from the heart.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/critics-write-out-of-intellectual-exercise-not-poets-poets-write/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) > [Once I worshipped Keats for dying young. Now I think it's braver to die old.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/erica-jong/once-i-worshipped-keats-for-dying-young-now-i-think-it-s-braver-to/) [Erica Jong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/erica-jong/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/bits-and-pieces/erica-jong/#itemlist", "name": "2 Bits and pieces Quotes By Erica Jong", "numberOfItems": 2, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“It took me years to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the solitude and the terror of failure, and the godawful silence and the white paper. And now that I can take it . . . now that I can finally do it . . . I'm really raring to go. I was in my study writing. I was learning how to go down into myself and salvage bits and pieces of the past. I was learning how to sneak up on the unconscious and how to catch my seemingly random thoughts and fantasies. By closing me out of his world, Bennett had opened all sorts of worlds inside my own head. Gradually I began to realize that none of the subjects I wrote poems about engaged my deepest feelings, that there was a great chasm between what I cared about and what I wrote about. Why? What was I afraid of? Myself, most of all, it seemed. \"Freedom is an illusion,\" Bennett would have said and, in a way, I too would have agreed. Sanity, moderation, hard work, stability . . . I believed in them too. But what was that other voice inside of me which kept urging me on toward zipless fucks, and speeding cars and endless wet kisses and guts full of danger? What was that other voice which kept calling me coward! and egging me on to burn my bridges, to swallow the poison in one gulp instead of drop by drop, to go down into the bottom of my fear and see if I could pull myself up? Was it a voice? Or was it a thump? Something even more primitive than speech. A kind of pounding in my gut which I had nicknamed my \"hunger-thump.\" It was as if my stomach thought of itself as a heart. And no matter how I filled it—with men, with books, with food—it refused to be still. Unfillable—that's what I was. Nymphomania of the brain. 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