Talking like touching. Writing like punching somebody. Susan Sontag More Quotes by Susan Sontag More Quotes From Susan Sontag Thinking, writing are ultimately questions of stamina. Susan Sontag stamina writing thinking the appetite for thinking must be regulated, as all sensible people know, for it may stifle one's life. Susan Sontag may people thinking The basic unit for contemporary art is not the idea, but the analysis of and extension of sensations. Susan Sontag analysis ideas art The tradition of portrait painting, to embellish or idealize the subject, remains the aim of everyday and of commercial photography, but it has had a much more limited career in photography considered as art. Generally speaking, the honors have gone to the Cordelias. Susan Sontag careers photography art My library is an archive of longings. Susan Sontag reading inspirational book The moral pleasure in art, as well as the moral service that art performs, consists in the intelligent gratification of consciousness. Susan Sontag moral intelligent art The history of art is a sequence of successful transgressions. Susan Sontag transgression successful art The purpose of art is always, ultimately, to give pleasure - though our sensibilities may take time to catch up with the forms of pleasure that art in a given time may offer. Susan Sontag purpose giving art Surrealism in painting amounted to little more than the contents of a meagerly stocked dream world: a few witty fantasies, mostly wet dreams and agoraphobic nightmares. Susan Sontag dream witty world By furnishing this already crowded world with a duplicate one of images, photography makes us feel that the world is more available than it really is. Susan Sontag photography feels world whatever doesn't kill you leaves scars. Susan Sontag scar The principal instances of mass violence in the world today are those committed by governments within their own legally recognized borders. Susan Sontag borders government world To emphasize style is to slight content, or to introduce an attitude which is neutral with respect to content. Susan Sontag introducing style attitude Theories that diseases are caused by mental states and can be cured by will power, are always an index of how much is not understood about the physical terrain of a disease. Susan Sontag disease states ignorance I write in spurts. I write when I have to because the pressure builds up and I feel enough confidence that something has matured in my head and I can write it down. But once something is really under way, I don't want to do anything else. I don't go out, much of the time I forget to eat, I sleep very little. It's a very undisciplined way of working and makes me not very prolific. But I'm too interested in many other things. Susan Sontag want sleep writing A good listener: a physical presence that is warm, alert, intelligent - more important than any words. Susan Sontag intelligent important listening Reading usually precedes writing. And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer. Susan Sontag reading dream writing The easiest thing in the world for me is to pay attention. Susan Sontag pay attention world writers are makers, not just transmitters, of myths. Literature offers not only myths but counter-myths, just as life offers counter-experiences - experiences that confound what you thought you thought, or felt, or believed. Susan Sontag myth makers literature The need for truth is not constant; no more than is the need for repose. An idea which is a distortion may have a greater intellectual thrust than the truth; it may better serve the needs of the spirit, which vary. The truth is balance, but the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie. Susan Sontag opposites lying ideas
