Decline of the letter, the rise of the notebook! One doesn't write to others any more; one writes to oneself. Susan Sontag More Quotes by Susan Sontag More Quotes From Susan Sontag Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution. Poignant longings for beauty, for an end to probing below the surface, for a redemption and celebration of the body of the world. Ultimately, having an experience becomes identical with taking a photograph of it. Susan Sontag womencitizensbeauty I urge you to be as impudent as you dare. BE BOLD, BE BOLD, BE BOLD. Susan Sontag healthcourageinspire It is not the position, but the disposition. Susan Sontag attitudemotivationalinspirational Literature can train, and exercise, our ability to weep for those who are not us or ours. Susan Sontag abilityliteratureexercise A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world. That means trying to understand, take in, connect with, what wickedness human beings are capable of; and not be corrupted - made cynical, superficial - by this understanding. Susan Sontag cynicalmeanthinking Kindness, kindness, kindness. I want to make a New Year's prayer, not a resolution. I'm praying for courage. Susan Sontag new-yearprayerkindness Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place. Susan Sontag get-well-soonsickhealth The painter constructs, the photographer discloses. Susan Sontag painphotographyphotographer There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera. Susan Sontag camerasphotographyuse Intelligence is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas. Susan Sontag intelligenceintelligentideas Despite the illusion of giving understanding, what seeing through photographs really invites is an acquisitive relation to the world that nourishes aesthetic awareness and promotes emotional detachment. Susan Sontag emotionalunderstandinggiving The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions. Susan Sontag answershistoryinteresting It hurts to love. It's like giving yourself to be flayed and knowing that at any moment the other person may just walk off with your skin. Susan Sontag knowinghurtgiving Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. People don't become inured to what they are shown — if that's the right way to describe what happens — because of the quantity of images dumped on them. It is passivity that dulls feeling. Susan Sontag cynicalboredcompassion The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own. Susan Sontag womenrealitypeople Someone who is perennially surprised that depravity exists, who continues to feel disillusioned (even incredulous) when confronted with evidence of what humans are capable of inflicting in the way of gruesome, hands-on cruelties upon other humans, has not reached moral or psychological adulthood. Susan Sontag moralhandsway Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. Susan Sontag designrealart My idea of a writer: someone interested in everything. Susan Sontag comebackwritingideas Photographs are perhaps the most mysterious of all the objects that make up, and thicken, the environment we recognize as modern. Photographs really are experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood. Susan Sontag armscamerasphotography Photographers are always imposing Susan Sontag imposingphotographer
