“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