Quote Of The Day -- 25th October 2008
[ 25 October 2008 ]
“It doesn’t get easier to tell the truth. It always gets harder. The deeper you go, the harder it gets.
The great revolution of women writing honestly about their lives, their sexual and emotional selves, quickly ossified into convention and was co-opted by formula-writers. Female pain and female sexuality became commonplace. Danger became safe. Risk became predictable. A new convention was born: the convention of the confessional novel.
Start again. Go into your heart and find your own truth. That will always be untarnished, fresh, red as arterial blood. And pulsing.”
— Erica Jong
Love letters & feather headdresses,
Tags: inspiration,
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wow.
thats amazingly true.
where do you find all this stuff!!
im meant to be doing an assignment and im sitting here for hours looking at all these great links you keep posting hahaha
thankyou!
You always manage to find something that sort of somes up right where I am in my life, or where I’m going…
Wow. I officially love Erica Jong. Thank you. :>
That’s a great quote…there’s a lot of imagery. I feel so inpspired to write very candidly. Thanks for posting this, Gala!
Inspired, that is.
Fabulous quote, you always seem to find something truly inspiring!
ahh quotes to make you question what you’re doing & what’s going on around you, my favourite! :)
we always seem to reinvent ourselves as a society by stripping down more and more layers of prudence, privacy or.. as the quote says.. honesty.
I always wonder how far that’ll go, in the years to come.
Interesting inspiring stuff, thanks Gala!
I have always loved and admired Erica Jong. It was her words that drove me to poetry and writing. Exquisite.
Thank you Gala.
This quote describes my week.
x
I really dislike that persons nose/lips/teeth, and I don’t know why…
Great quote though!
I love Erica too. I read Fear Of Flying in 2006 & it was one of the best things ever.
do you have the chambers dictionary of quotations (or similar)? maybe you would like it. sometimes it is fun to just read it through like a novel, although it is so big and heavy it would take forever! x
Great quote, Gala. Terrifying to put into practice, though!
Great quote…thank you for sharing!
LOVELOVELOVE Erica Jong! Thanks for this. :-D
Lovely quote, I love the last image of something so raw. It’s funny, I favourited that picture a while ago on flickr – she reminds me so much of Maggie Gyllenhaal!
i find myself increasingly honest to myself, yet less and less revealing to others. hiding more and more.
Awesome.
By the way, you should check out this Target Women series: current.com/topics/88813968_ta…
I especially enjoyed the Birth Control and Disney Princesses episodes…
Wow, Jinny, I feel exactly the same way! It almost seems as if when I tell someone something really true about myself, it then get less important or less true… Maybe I just like keeping secrets, who knows?
Regardless, it’s a wonderful quote. Thank you Gala for sharing!
Also, I’m going to look up Erica Jong right now!
I am so excited to see Romanlily’s picture on your site. She is an amazing photographer!
I love this quote!!
Do you listen to loveline? It’s a great radio show with sex advice from the wise and funny Dr. Drew and his sidekick Stryker. I think you’d love it.
emma — Sometimes, yeah! I didn’t actually know you could listen to it streaming on the web until someone told me Atmosphere was on the show about a month ago ;> I used to watch Loveline years & years ago! I love Dr Drew, he’s so good. His show Sex With Mom & Dad is awesome too.
Pardon me every body, but I would like to object to the quote..
I mean the line: “It doesn’t get easier to tell the truth. It always gets harder. The deeper you go, the harder it gets”
I think this post is really positive and it would be good if the above statement is also… But then, it suits the statement well…
Coates: I think it’s all part of the positive though, I mean, it’s true that to go fully into yourself and tell the whole truth is extremely difficult, but if you are able to get though the hardship and come out the other side then the rewards spiritually and artistically are worth the difficulty, if that makes sense.
The image is beautiful, it suits the quote well! Seductive.
Coates — I see what you mean, but at the same time, I think what she says is true. The deeper you dig, the harder it becomes to admit things to yourself. It gets darker & uglier, but the reason we do it (or should do it) is because the rewards are enormous. Erica Jong is known for writing painful truth; that’s just her style. She uses something that makes you cringe to prove a point, which is very distinctive. She’s all about being honest, which isn’t always total sweetness & light!
I think most women hide their true selves behind layers of protective ‘stuff’. Why I always want to laugh whenever someone claims to really know me. People only truly know what we project out to others, invent for others, or allow others to experience when it comes to ourselves
i used to always tell the whole truth but people looked at me like i was weird. so i don’t anymore. only to best friends. but to myself, i’ve admitted all this stuff that i find truly gross. but i did admit it to myself. and now i feel a lot more alive even though i feel like uglier, because of that truth. my counsellor told me she knew everything about me on my second visit to her. i stopped going. right now i feel i know nearly everything there is to know about myself. there is at least one other major thing but i haven’t worked it out yet. all my friends are pretty insecure. ask them about something vaguely deep about themselves and they run a mile.
oh. i’m 14.
i used to always tell the whole truth but people looked at me like i was weird. so i don’t anymore. only to best friends. but to myself, i’ve admitted all this stuff that i find truly gross. but i did admit it to myself. and now i feel a lot more alive even though i feel like uglier, because of that truth. my counsellor told me she knew everything about me on my second visit to her. i stopped going. right now i feel i know nearly everything there is to know about myself. there is at least one other major thing but i haven’t worked it out yet. all my friends are pretty insecure. ask them about something vaguely deep about themselves and they run a mile. it was hardly easy to discover myself though. i had some very hard (for me) years in primary school and early high school. i have friends though. a stable group at lunch but in class i diversify.
oh. i’m 14.
i agree with the line: “It doesn’t get easier to tell the truth. It always gets harder. The deeper you go, the harder it gets”
it gets harder and harder, but it is worth it, any one who has delved that deep into themselves knows it.
great post Gala xxxxx
Very beautifully said! I find these words so inspiring, especially right now when I need a bit of a push in my life. I need to start again
Bravo Gala!