Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontagwas an American writer, filmmaker, teacher and political activist. She published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her best-known works include On Photography, Against Interpretation, Styles of Radical Will, The Way We Live Now, Illness as Metaphor, Regarding the Pain of Others, The Volcano Lover and In America...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth16 January 1933
CountryUnited States of America
photography past america
In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the one who invents it.
reality drawing doe
Although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are
jobs important savages
An important job of the critic is to savage what is mediocre or meretricious.
mean thinking cynical
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.
cancer race government
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.
art worry people
Never worry about being obsessive. I like obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art
book reading bigs
Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading.
feelings asks
One can never ask anyone to change a feeling.
strong feelings creation
Whoever invented marriage was an ingenious tormentor. It is an institution committed to the dulling of the feelings. The whole point of marriage is repetition. The best it aims for is the creation of strong, mutual dependencies.
pain taken people
No 'we' should be taken for granted when the subject is looking at other people's pain.
writing agony passionate
I am profoundly uncertain how to write. I know what I love and what I like, because it's a direct passionate response. But when I write, I'm very uncertain whether it's good enough. That is, of course, the writer's agony.
tired persons
I discovered that I am tired of being a person. Not just tired of being the person I was, but any person at all
artist hands eras
To be an artist or a writer is to be this weird thing - a hand worker in an era of mass production.
creativity men boredom
The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes.