The single most amazing phenomenon is the discrediting of idealism. Susan Sontag More Quotes by Susan Sontag More Quotes From Susan Sontag Time eventually positions most photographs, even the most amateurish, at the level of art. Susan Sontag levels photograph art Needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted. Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution. Susan Sontag pollution citizens reality Books are not only the arbitrary sum of our dreams, and our memory. They also give us the model of self-transcende nce. Susan Sontag dream memories book The writer's first job is not to have opinions but to tell the truth... and refuse to be an accomplice of lies and misinformation. Literature is the house of nuance and contrariness against the voices of simplification. Susan Sontag voice jobs lying What I really wanted was every kind of life, and the writer’s life seemed the most inclusive. Susan Sontag kind wanted Nothing is mysterious, no human relation. Except love. Susan Sontag mysterious relation love Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art. Susan Sontag science fiction art Photographs may be more memorable than moving images, because they are a neat slice of time, not a flow. Each still photograph is a privileged moment turned into a slim object that one can keep and look at again. Susan Sontag memorable looks moving A photograph is not only an image (as a painting is an image), an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask. Susan Sontag painting photography real The problems of this world are only truly solved in two ways: by extinction or duplication. Susan Sontag extinction two world Writing is finally a series of permissions you give yourself to be expressive in certain ways. To leap. To fly. To fail. Susan Sontag writing giving way Sanity is a cozy lie. Susan Sontag women depression lying Bleak factory buildings and billboard-cluttered avenues look as beautiful, through the camera's eye, as churches and pastoral landscapes. Susan Sontag eye beautiful beauty Most men experience getting older with regret, apprehension. But most women experience it even more painfully: with shame. Aging is a man's destiny, something that must happen because he is a human being. For a woman, aging is not only her destiny . . . it is also her vulnerability. Susan Sontag destiny regret men What I expect from writers-and from myself as a writer-is to articulate a complex view of things. To incite us to be more compassionate. To orchestrate our mourning. And to celebrate ecstasy. Susan Sontag mourning celebrate views It is the action of bodies on bodies, not bodies on minds, which the crowd enjoys. Susan Sontag crowds body mind The wisdom of literature is quite antithetical to having opinions. 'Nothing is my last word about anything,' said Henry James. Furnishing opinions, even correct opinions - whenever asked - cheapens what novelists and poets do best, which is to sponsor reflectiveness, to pursue complexity. Information will never replace illumination. Susan Sontag illumination novelists literature The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes. Susan Sontag boredom creativity men One can never ask anyone to change a feeling. Susan Sontag asks feelings Music is at once the most wonderful, the most alive of all the arts- it is the most abstract, the most perfect, the most pure- and the most sensual. I listen with my body and it is my body that aches in response to the passion and pathos embodied in this music. Susan Sontag passion perfect art
