An important job of the critic is to savage what is mediocre or meretricious. Susan Sontag More Quotes by Susan Sontag More Quotes From Susan Sontag Surrealism can only deliver a reactionary judgment; can make out of history only an accumulation of oddities, a joke, a death trip. Susan Sontag accumulationodditiesjudgment The shock of photographed atrocities wears off with repeated viewings, just as the surprise and bemusement felt the first time one sees a pornographic movie wear off after one sees a few more. Susan Sontag atrocitiessurprisefirsts Photography is, first of all, a way of seeing. Susan Sontag photographywayfirsts We live under continual threat of two equally fearful, but seemingly opposed destinies: unremitting banality and inconceivable terror. It is fantasy, served out in large rations by the popular arts, which allows most people to cope with these twin specters. Susan Sontag destinywritingart Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs. Susan Sontag inspirationalfunnytravel No 'we' should be taken for granted when the subject is looking at other people's pain. Susan Sontag paintakenpeople I discovered that I am tired of being a person. Not just tired of being the person I was, but any person at all Susan Sontag tiredpersons Communism is fascism with a human face. Susan Sontag fascismcommunismfaces In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art. Susan Sontag hermeneuticsartneeds Images have been reproached for being a way of watching suffering at a distance, as if there were some other way of watching. Susan Sontag distancesufferingway Wherever people feel safe — they will be indifferent. Susan Sontag indifferentsafepeople Photography - the supreme form of travel, of tourism - is the principal modern means for enlarging the world. As a branch of art, photography's enterprise of world enlargement tends to specialize in the subjects felt to be challenging, transgressive. A photograph may be telling us: this too exists. And that. And that. (And it is all 'human.') But what are we to do with this knowledge - if indeed it is knowledge, about, say, the self, about abnormality, about ostracized or clandestine worlds? Susan Sontag photographymeanart There are some elements in life - above all, sexual pleasure - about which it isn't necessary to have a position. Susan Sontag positionelementspleasure Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Balanchine ballets, et al. don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history. Susan Sontag cancergovernmentrace To patronize the faculty of taste is to patronize oneself. For taste governs every free - as opposed to rote - human response. Susan Sontag facultyresponsetaste I feel inauthentic at a party. ... Going to a party is a 'low' activity - the authentic self is compromised, fragmented - one plays 'roles.' One isn't fully present, beyond role-playing. One doesn't (can't) tell the full truth, which means one is lying, even if one doesn't literally tell lies. Susan Sontag partytruthlying Quotation is a method of appropriation which is invincible, I think. It's not a procedure which displeases me, contrary to recycling. Susan Sontag recyclingproceduresthinking I believe that courage is morally neutral. I can well imagine wicked people being brave and good people being timid or afraid. I don't consider it a moral virtue. Susan Sontag bravebelievepeople What makes me feel strong? Being in love and work. I must work. Susan Sontag being-in-lovestrongfeels War is elective. It is not an inevitable state of affairs. War is not the weather. Susan Sontag affairweatherwar
