It takes a spasm of love to write a poem. - Erica Jong

The myths about women were mostly ways of keeping us out of touch with our own strength, and this confused many generations of women.

Inevitably, I drank too much, talked too much, smiled too hard, swallowed back too much bile.

It seems to me that having now created an entire literature of female rage, an entire literature of female introspection, women writers are ready to enter the next phase-the phase of empathy. Without forgetting how hard-won our rage was, without forgetting how many puritanical voices would still like to censor our sexuality, I think we must consider ourselves free to explore the whole world of feeling in our writings-and not to be trapped forever in the phase of discovering buried anger...The time has come to let go of that rage; the time has come to realize that curiosity is braver than rage, that exploration is a nobler calling than war.