Erica Jong Quotes About Language

Quotes about: Language

• Language matters because whoever controls the words controls the conversation, because whoever controls the conversation controls its outcome, because whoever frames the debate has already won it, because telling the truth has become harder and harder to achieve in an America drowning in Orwellian Newspeak.

  Erica Jong

  America, Outcomes, Matter

  Erica Jong (2007). “Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life”, p.9, Penguin

• Murky language means someone wants to pick your pocket.

  Erica Jong

  Mean, Pockets, Want

• language can't be appropriated by one person, one poet. The words belong to all of us.

  Erica Jong

  Language, Poet, Persons

  erica jong (1977). “how to save your own life”

• we need poetry most at those moments when life astounds us with losses, gains, or celebrations. We need it most when we are most hurt, most happy, most downcast, most jubilant. Poetry is the language we speak in times of greatest need. And the fact that it is an endangered species in our culture tells us that we are in deep trouble.

  Erica Jong

  Hurt, Loss, Gains

• Is there a phrase in the English language more fraught with menace than a tax audit?

  Erica Jong

  Phrases, Language, Menace

• There is this tendency to think that if you could only find the magic way, then you could become a poet. "Tell me how to become a poet. Tell me what to do." . . . What makes you a poet is a gift for language, an ability to see into the heart of things, and an ability to deal with important unconscious material. When all these things come together, you're a poet. But there isn't one little gimmick that makes you a poet. There isn't any formula for it.

  Erica Jong

  Heart, Thinking, Magic

• 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.

  Erica Jong

  Teacher, School, Thinking

  "Love Comes First" by Erica Jong, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 2, 2009.

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