Susan Sontag quotes - page 8

I'm sickened by the way that the delivery of so-called humanitarian aid is once again being used as a justification - or cover - for war. (Susan Sontag)
Americans are constantly extolling "traditions"; litanies to family values are at the center of every politician's discourse. And yet the culture of America is extremely corrosive of family life, indeed of all traditions except those redefined as "identities" that can be accepted as part of larger patterns of distinctiveness, cooperation, and openness to innovation. View quote
Susan Sontag
The United States is a generically religious society. That is, in the United States it's not important which religion you adhere to, as long as you have one. View quote
Susan Sontag
Mad people = People who stand alone and burn. I'm attracted to them because they give me permission to do the same. View quote
Susan Sontag
Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading. View quote
Susan Sontag
Desire has no history... View quote
Susan Sontag
"Camp" is a vision of the world in terms of style - but a particular style. It is the love of the exaggerated. View quote
Susan Sontag
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. View quote
Susan Sontag
"Old" and "new" are the perennial poles of all feeling and sense of orientation in the world. View quote
Susan Sontag
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. View quote
Susan Sontag
Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality... One can't possess reality, one can possess images--one can't possess the present but one can possess the past. (Susan Sontag)
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. View quote
Susan Sontag
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. View quote
Susan Sontag
All modern wars, even when their aims are the traditional ones, such as territorial aggrandizement or the acquisition of scarce resources, are cast as clashes of civilizations - culture wars - with each side claiming the high ground, and characterizing the other as barbaric. View quote
Susan Sontag
Interpretation is not (as most people assume) an absolute value, a gesture of mind situated in some timeless realm of capabilities. View quote
Susan Sontag
In my view, there can be no compromise with such a vision. And, no, I don't think we have brought this upon ourselves, which is of course a view that has been attributed to me. View quote
Susan Sontag
The discovery of the good taste of bad taste can be very liberating. The man who insists on high and serious pleasures is depriving himself of pleasure; he continually restricts what he can enjoy; in the constant exercise of his good taste he will eventually price himself out of the market, so to speak. View quote
Susan Sontag
As a secular person, and as a woman, I've always been appalled by the Taliban regime and would dearly like to see them toppled. I was a public critic of the regime long before the war started. View quote
Susan Sontag
People do these things to other people. Not just in Nazi concentration camps and in Abu Ghraib when it was run by Saddam Hussein. Americans, too, do them when they have permission. When they are told or made to feel that those over whom they have absolute power deserve to be mistreated, humiliated, tormented. View quote
Susan Sontag
But just because I am a critic of Israeli policy - and in particular the occupation, simply because it is untenable, it creates a border that cannot be defended - that does not mean I believe the U.S. has brought this terrorism on itself because it supports Israel. I believe bin Laden and his supporters are using this as a pretext. If we were to change our support for Israel overnight, we would not stop these attacks. I don't think this is what it's really about. View quote
Susan Sontag
From "old" Europe's point of view, America seems bent on squandering the admiration - and gratitude - felt by most Europeans. (Susan Sontag)
The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public. View quote
Susan Sontag
Never before was the relation of masters and slaves so consciously aestheticized. View quote
Susan Sontag
To have access to literature, world literature, was to escape the prison of national vanity, of philistinism, of compulsory provincialism, of inane schooling, of imperfect destinies and bad luck. View quote
Susan Sontag
From now to the end of consciousness, we are stuck with the task of defending art. View quote
Susan Sontag