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
cope equally large people popular seemingly served threat twin
We live under continual threat of two equally fearful, but seemingly opposed, destinies: unremitting banality and inconceivable terror. It is fantasy, served out in large rations by the popular arts, which allows most people to cope with these twin specters.
writing thinking people
I guess I think I'm writing for people who are smarter than I am, because then I'll be doing something that's worth their time. I'd be very afraid to write from a position where I consciously thought I was smarter than most of my readers.
ideas people taste
Taste tends to develop very unevenly. It's rare that the same person has good visual taste and good taste in people and taste in ideas.
courage fear people
Fear binds people together. And fear disperses them. Courage inspires communities: the courage of an example - for courage is as contagious as fear. But courage, certain kinds of courage, can also isolate the brave.
interesting people illness
The romantic treatment of death asserts that people were made singular, made more interesting, by their illnesses.
people cynical failing
People tend to become cynical about even the most appalling crisis if it seems to be dragging on, failing to come to term.
art self people
Self-exposure is commendable in art only when it is of a quality and complexity that allows other people to learn about themselves from it.
people mad this-society
Most people in this society who aren't actively mad are, at best, reformed or potential lunatics.
people unattractive cameras
Along with people who pretty themselves for the camera, the unattractive and the disaffected have been assigned their beauty.
giving mad people
Mad people = People who stand alone and burn. I'm attracted to them because they give me permission to do the same.
nuts people four
The writer must be four people: 1) The nut, the obsede 2) The moron 3) The stylist 4) The critic. 1 supplies the material; 2 lets it come out; 3 is taste; 4 is intelligence.
people safe indifferent
Wherever people feel safe (...) they will be indifferent.
people society liberty
One set of messages of the society we live in is: Consume. Grow. Do what you want. Amuse yourselves. The very working of this economic system, which has bestowed these unprecedented liberties, most cherished in the form of physical mobility and material prosperity, depends on encouraging people to defy limits.
frustration emotional people
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. The states described as apathy, moral or emotional anesthesia, are full of feelings; the feelings are rage and frustration.