A Quote by Erica Jong
Anybody who instantly goes from being a poet and a graduate student to being a public figure has to be in a state of shock. First people want to praise you, and then they want to attack you. No one can prepare you for it.
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Getting hit is part of the job. You don't want the first time you're getting punched to be in the fight because there's a lot of shock and awe and you won't react well. I like to get hit in sparring. I don't want to get concussed, or I don't want to be getting knocked out, but I want some shock treatment to prepare me for the fight.
You know that being a public figure is instantly grounds for prosecution.
Enlightenment doesn't mean you stop being a student. Being a student is a state of mind. Enlightenment simply means that you are everything and everywhere. It doesn't preclude being a student.
For people who may think they know, or have snippets of who I am, you can attack that person. That's part of being a public figure.
Do you want to continue being great at being in your twenties, or do you want to step up and graduate into adulthood?
When people say they don't want a nanny state, they are, in fact, in a conflicted state of mind. On the one hand, they want to do whatever they want and not be stopped. On the other hand, if something goes wrong, they want to be rescued.
It was a shock to everyone when I became a rapper. Huge shock to everyone. But I knew it all along. I just didn't want to tell anybody cause then it's like, What if it doesn't work?
I started doing science when I was effectively 20, a graduate student of Salvador Luria at Indiana University. And that was - you know, it took me about two years, you know, being a graduate student with Luria deciding I wanted to find the structure of DNA; that is, DNA was going to be my objective.
Why do people want to know exactly who I am? Am I a poet? Am I this or that? I've always made people wary. First they called me a rock poet. Then I was a poet that dabbled in rock. Then I was a rock person who dabbled in art.
I went from being a senator, a young senator, to being considered for vice president, running for president, being a vice presidential candidate, and becoming a national public figure. All of which fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want.
I mean, it's not just the rappers, you know what i'm saying? People want to attack anybody that's a large figure, you know what I'm saying? They did it to [Michael] Jordan, they did it to [Mike] Tyson, they did it to Bill Cosby, you know what I'm saying? They're gonna' attack you if you on top.
Part of the pleasure of giving a reading comes from the rapport between the audience and the poet. I don't want to get mystical here, but there's an energy flow that begins with the poet, and the energy goes out to the audience, and they're energized, and then they return that energy to the poet. As someone standing up there alone, facing these people, I can feel that rapport (or its absence).
I want to study marriage. I want to learn about it. I want to know it. I want to figure out whether or not I want to do it. I'm not just going to leap into it, because that's not good for anybody.
Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy.
I never met anybody in my life who says, I want to be a critic. People want to be a fireman, poet, novelist.
Anybody from the public can come in and observe ballots being processed and those votes being counted in elections officials' offices in any county in any state in the nation.
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