My reaction to porno films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.
Erica JongRead
There is a rhythm to the ending of a marriage just like the rhythm of a courtship-only backward. You try to start again but get into blaming over and over. Finally you are both worn out, exhausted, hopeless. Then lawyers are called in to pick clean the corpses. The death has occurred much earlier.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The end of a marriage follows a predictable cycle, much like how it began, but with negative emotions dominating the process.
Erica Jong illustrates the difficult and often painful process of a marriage's ending, likening it to a rhythmic pattern that mirrors the courtship but in reverse. As partners transition from hopefulness to blame and exhaustion, the inevitable conclusion—a divorce—inevitably brings in legal intervention to finalize what has long been emotionally deceased.
Themes
MarriageDivorceRelationshipsEndingsEmotions
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the difficulties of a divorce process.
More from Erica Jong
All quotes →I have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back.
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No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.
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My generation was not only maligned in book reviews and attacked in graduate school but we lived to see our adored and adorable daughters wonder why feminism had become a dirty word.
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Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.
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I believe that women should live for love, for motherhood and for intellect, and I believe we shouldn't have to choose. And I believe that's always been difficult for women, to express themselves intellectually, maternally, and passionately.
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