My own view is that one cannot be religious in general any more than one can speak language in general; at any given moment one speaks French or English or Swahili or Japanese, but not 'language. Susan Sontag More Quotes by Susan Sontag More Quotes From Susan Sontag Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading. Susan Sontag bigsreadingbook I don't write because there's an audience. I write because there is literature. Susan Sontag audienceliteraturewriting Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech. Susan Sontag speechformsilence Writing is a little door. Some fantasies, like big pieces of furniture, won’t come through. Susan Sontag pieceswritingdoors The truth is balance. However the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie. Susan Sontag truthoppositeslying Talking like touching. Writing like punching somebody. Susan Sontag touchingwritingtalking The only interesting ideas are heresies Susan Sontag heresyideasinteresting I don't write easily or rapidly. My first draft usually has only a few elements worth keeping. I have to find what those are and build from them and throw out what doesn't work, or what simply is not alive. Susan Sontag elementsalivewriting There is a great deal that either has to be given up or be taken away from you if you are going to succeed in writing a body of work. Susan Sontag bodytakenwriting The best emotions to write out of are anger and fear or dread. The least energizing emotion to write out of is admiration. It is very difficult to write out of because the basic feeling that goes with admiration is a passive contemplative mood. Susan Sontag feelingswritingart Perversity is the muse of modern literature. Susan Sontag musemodernliterature In good films, there is always a directness that entirely frees us from the itch to interpret. Susan Sontag good-filmsfilm Books are funny little portable pieces of thought. Susan Sontag funnysciencebook The past itself, as historical change continues to accelerate, has become the most surreal of subjects - making it possible... to see a new beauty in what is vanishing. Susan Sontag timebeautypast The ideology of capitalism makes us all into connoisseurs of liberty - of the indefinite expansion of possibility. Susan Sontag expansionpossibilityliberty Ambition, if it feeds at all, does so on the ambition of others. Susan Sontag ambitiondoework Mallarme said that everything in the world exists in order to end in a book. Today everything exists to end in a photograph. Susan Sontag photographyorderbook Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art. Susan Sontag womenrevengeart A family's photograph album is generally about the extended family and, often, is all that remains of it. Susan Sontag cousinoften-isphotography Art is a form of consciousness. Susan Sontag consciousnessformart
