Volume depends precisely on the writer's having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone. Susan Sontag on alone
Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art. Susan Sontag on art
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 on beauty
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 on change
For those who live neither with religious consolations about death nor with a sense of death (or of anything else) as natural, death is the obscene mystery, the ultimate affront, the thing that cannot be controlled. It can only be denied. Susan Sontag on death
I was not looking for my dreams to interpret my life, but rather for my life to interpret my dreams. Susan Sontag on dreams
I do not think white America is committed to granting equality to the American Negro. This is a passionately racist country it will continue to be so in the foreseeable future. Susan Sontag on equality
The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art - and, by analogy, our own experience - more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means. Susan Sontag on experience
Any critic is entitled to wrong judgments, of course. But certain lapses of judgment indicate the radical failure of an entire sensibility. Susan Sontag on failure
A family's photograph album is generally about the extended family and, often, is all that remains of it. Susan Sontag on family
The love of the famous, like all strong passions, is quite abstract. Its intensity can be measured mathematically, and it is independent of persons. Susan Sontag on famous
Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens and real diseases are useful material. Susan Sontag on fear
Books are funny little portable pieces of thought. Susan Sontag on funny
Existence is no more than the precarious attainment of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, present, and future. Susan Sontag on future
I do not think white America is committed to granting equality to the American Negro. This is a passionately racist country it will continue to be so in the foreseeable future. Susan Sontag on future
The becoming of man is the history of the exhaustion of his possibilities. Susan Sontag on history
Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe. Susan Sontag on history
Intelligence is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas. Susan Sontag on intelligence
Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art. Susan Sontag on science
Most people in this society who aren't actively mad are, at best, reformed or potential lunatics. Susan Sontag on society