--- title: "3 Arbitrary Quotes By Susan Sontag" description: "3 Arbitrary quotes by Susan Sontag. Plus more from Susan Sontag and more Arbitrary sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a7c/susan-sontag-332_arbitrary_books-are-not-only-the-arbitrary-sum-of_1572519.jpg" --- > [Books are not only the arbitrary sum of our dreams, and our memory. They also give us the model of self-transcende nce.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/books-are-not-only-the-arbitrary-sum-of-our-dreams-and-our-memory-2/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a7c/susan-sontag-332_arbitrary_books-are-not-only-the-arbitrary-sum-of_1572519.jpg) > [In every society, the definitions of sanity and madness are arbitrary - are, in the largest sense, political.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/in-every-society-the-definitions-of-sanity-and-madness-are-arbitrary/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a57/susan-sontag-332_arbitrary_in-every-society-the-definitions-of-sani_2336884.jpg) > [Tamed as it may be, sexuality remains one of the demonic forces in human consciousness - pushing us at intervals close to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/tamed-as-it-may-be-sexuality-remains-one-of-the-demonic-forces-in/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/bcc/susan-sontag-332_arbitrary_tamed-as-it-may-be-sexuality-remains-one_2732932.jpg) ## More by Susan Sontag > [the appetite for thinking must be regulated, as all sensible people know, for it may stifle one's life.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-appetite-for-thinking-must-be-regulated-as-all-sensible-people/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [We are ruled by quotations.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/we-are-ruled-by-quotations/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [Unfortunately, moral beauty in art - like physical beauty in a person - is extremely perishable. It is nowhere so durable as artistic or…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/unfortunately-moral-beauty-in-art-like-physical-beauty-in-a-person-is/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [Like the collector, the photographer is animated by a passion that, even when it appears to be for the present, is linked to a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/like-the-collector-the-photographer-is-animated-by-a-passion-that/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [ Anthropology has always struggled with an intense, fascinated repulsion towards its subject… \[The anthropologist\] submits himself to the exotic to confirm his own inner… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/anthropology-has-always-struggled-with-an-intense-fascinated/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [“Why not eliminate schooling between age 12-16? It’s biologically + psychologically too turbulent a time to be cooped up inside, made to sit all…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/why-not-eliminate-schooling-between-age-12-16-it-s-biologically/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/to-photograph-people-is-to-violate-them-by-seeing-them-as-they-never/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [One set of messages of the society we live in is: Consume. Grow. Do what you want. Amuse yourselves. The very working of this…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/one-set-of-messages-of-the-society-we-live-in-is-consume-grow-do-what/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [Currently intellectuals in Western Europe and North America are extremely demoralized and shaken by the rise of a virulent conservative tendency (which some have…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/currently-intellectuals-in-western-europe-and-north-america-are/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [With the modern diseases (once TB, now cancer) the romantic idea that the disease expresses the character is invariably extended to assert that the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/with-the-modern-diseases-once-tb-now-cancer-the-romantic-idea-that/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [As objects of contemplation, images of the atrocious can answer to several different needs. To steel oneself against weakness. To make oneself more numb.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/as-objects-of-contemplation-images-of-the-atrocious-can-answer-to/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [The creative phase of an idea coincides with the period during which it insists, cantankerously, on its boundaries, on what makes it different; but…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-creative-phase-of-an-idea-coincides-with-the-period-during-which/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [Photographs objectify: they turn an event or a person into something that can be possessed.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/photographs-objectify-they-turn-an-event-or-a-person-into-something/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [I'm not interested in giving aid and comfort to the neo­-Conservatives.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/i-m-not-interested-in-giving-aid-and-comfort-to-the-neo-conservatives/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [The feminist movement has been important to me because it's made me feel less odd and also because it has made me understand some…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-feminist-movement-has-been-important-to-me-because-it-s-made-me/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/arbitrary/susan-sontag/#itemlist", "name": "3 Arbitrary Quotes By Susan Sontag", "numberOfItems": 3, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "Books are not only the arbitrary sum of our dreams, and our memory. 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