--- title: "24 Ifs Quotes By Susan Sontag" description: "24 Ifs quotes by Susan Sontag. Plus more from Susan Sontag and more Ifs sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5f0/susan-sontag-332_comedy_if-tragedy-is-an-experience-of-hyperinvo_2750907.jpg" --- > [If tragedy is an experience of hyperinvolvement, comedy is an experience of underinvolvement, of detachment.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/if-tragedy-is-an-experience-of-hyperinvolvement-comedy-is-an/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5f0/susan-sontag-332_comedy_if-tragedy-is-an-experience-of-hyperinvo_2750907.jpg) > [“If there can be a better way for the real world to include the one of images, it will require an ecology…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/if-there-can-be-a-better-way-for-the-real-world-to-include-the-one-of/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3f1/susan-sontag-332_better-way_if-there-can-be-a-better-way-for-the-rea_111018.jpg) > [Any disease that is treated as a mystery and acutely enough feared will be felt to be morally, if not literally, contagious.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/any-disease-that-is-treated-as-a-mystery-and-acutely-enough-feared/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8e1/susan-sontag-332_contagious_any-disease-that-is-treated-as-a-mystery_496540.jpg) > [On the level of simple sensation and mood, making love surely resembles an epileptic fit at least as much as, if not…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/on-the-level-of-simple-sensation-and-mood-making-love-surely/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/099/susan-sontag-332_demonic_on-the-level-of-simple-sensation-and-moo_2158310.jpg) > [There is a great deal that either has to be given up or be taken away from you if you are going…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/there-is-a-great-deal-that-either-has-to-be-given-up-or-be-taken-away/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/c73/susan-sontag-332_away-from-you_there-is-a-great-deal-that-either-has-to_1295442.jpg) > [People tend to become cynical about even the most appalling crisis if it seems to be dragging on, failing to come to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/people-tend-to-become-cynical-about-even-the-most-appalling-crisis-if/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/114/susan-sontag-332_crisis_people-tend-to-become-cynical-about-even_2155095.jpg) > [Many things in the world have not been named; and many things, even if they have been named, have never been described.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/many-things-in-the-world-have-not-been-named-and-many-things-even-if/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6d2/susan-sontag-332_has-beens_many-things-in-the-world-have-not-been-n_1961880.jpg) > [It's almost as if this is the fundamental procedure in modern society: duplication and recycling.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/it-s-almost-as-if-this-is-the-fundamental-procedure-in-modern-society/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fd4/susan-sontag-332_duplication_it-s-almost-as-if-this-is-the-fundamenta_1131950.jpg) > [If an irreducible distinction between theatre and cinema does exist, it may be this: Theatre is confined to a logical or continuous…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/if-an-irreducible-distinction-between-theatre-and-cinema-does-exist/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/025/susan-sontag-332_access_if-an-irreducible-distinction-between-th_1078316.jpg) > [His view of time, and of change, has become that of most elderly people: he hates change, since for him - for…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/his-view-of-time-and-of-change-has-become-that-of-most-elderly-people/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/32f/susan-sontag-332_body_his-view-of-time-and-of-change-has-becom_2103132.jpg) > [I feel inauthentic at a party. ... Going to a party is a 'low' activity - the authentic self is compromised, fragmented…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/i-feel-inauthentic-at-a-party-going-to-a-party-is-a-low-activity-the/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d60/susan-sontag-332_activity_i-feel-inauthentic-at-a-party-going-to-a_123259.jpg) > [Images anesthetize. An event known through photographs certainly becomes more real than it would have been if one had never seen the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/images-anesthetize-an-event-known-through-photographs-certainly/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ba2/susan-sontag-332_concerned_images-anesthetize-an-event-known-throug_2034299.jpg) > [The solution to a problem - a story that you are unable to finish - is the problem. It isn't as if…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-solution-to-a-problem-a-story-that-you-are-unable-to-finish-is/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0a1/susan-sontag-332_ifs_the-solution-to-a-problem-a-story-that-y_1114515.jpg) > [The fear of AIDS imposes on an act whose ideal is an experience of pure presentness (and a creation of the future)…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-fear-of-aids-imposes-on-an-act-whose-ideal-is-an-experience-of/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/75d/susan-sontag-332_aids_the-fear-of-aids-imposes-on-an-act-whose_1519695.jpg) > [... liberal intellectualstend to have a classical theory of politics, in which the state has a monopoly of power; hoping thatthose in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/liberal-intellectualstend-to-have-a-classical-theory-of-politics-in/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/93b/susan-sontag-332_allies_liberal-intellectualstend-to-have-a-clas_453567.jpg) > [Photography - the supreme form of travel, of tourism - is the principal modern means for enlarging the world. As a branch…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/photography-the-supreme-form-of-travel-of-tourism-is-the-principal/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0ee/susan-sontag-332_abnormality_photography-the-supreme-form-of-travel-o_1741058.jpg) > [Between two fantasy alternatives, that Holbein the Younger had lived long enough to have painted Shakespeare or that a prototype of the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/between-two-fantasy-alternatives-that-holbein-the-younger-had-lived/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/68f/susan-sontag-332_alternatives_between-two-fantasy-alternatives-that-ho_1735168.jpg) > [Any photograph has multiple meanings: indeed, to see something in the form of a photograph is to encounter a potential object of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/any-photograph-has-multiple-meanings-indeed-to-see-something-in-the/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e52/susan-sontag-332_deductions_any-photograph-has-multiple-meanings-ind_430155.jpg) > [Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/compassion-is-an-unstable-emotion-it-needs-to-be-translated-into-2/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ee7/susan-sontag-332_action_compassion-is-an-unstable-emotion-it-nee_1686180.jpg) > [If within the last century art conceived as an autonomous activity has come to be invested with an unprecedented stature - the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/if-within-the-last-century-art-conceived-as-an-autonomous-activity/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8c3/susan-sontag-332_activity_if-within-the-last-century-art-conceived_2575163.jpg) > [The truth of history crowds out the truth of fiction - as if one were obliged to choose between them.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-truth-of-history-crowds-out-the-truth-of-fiction-as-if-one-were/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2c2/susan-sontag-332_crowds_the-truth-of-history-crowds-out-the-trut_605959.jpg) > [We are told we must choose - the old or the new. In fact, we must choose both. What is a life…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/we-are-told-we-must-choose-the-old-or-the-new-in-fact-we-must-choose/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/232/susan-sontag-332_choices_we-are-told-we-must-choose-the-old-or-th_1388843.jpg) > [Our appreciations, it was felt, could be so much more inclusive if we said that something, instead of being beautiful, was 'interesting'.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/our-appreciations-it-was-felt-could-be-so-much-more-inclusive-if-we/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/c34/susan-sontag-332_appreciation_our-appreciations-it-was-felt-could-be-s_3150699.jpg) > [Images have been reproached for being a way of watching suffering at a distance, as if there were some other way of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/images-have-been-reproached-for-being-a-way-of-watching-suffering-at/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/552/susan-sontag-332_distance_images-have-been-reproached-for-being-a_1751537.jpg) ## Other authors on Ifs ## 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/ifs/susan-sontag/#itemlist", "name": "24 Ifs Quotes By Susan Sontag", "numberOfItems": 24, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "If tragedy is an experience of hyperinvolvement, comedy is an experience of underinvolvement, of detachment.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Susan Sontag" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/if-tragedy-is-an-experience-of-hyperinvolvement-comedy-is-an/", "image": { "@type": 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It cannot be considered just a coupling; it is a chain, a chain of transmission, from the past.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Susan Sontag" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-fear-of-aids-imposes-on-an-act-whose-ideal-is-an-experience-of/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/75d/susan-sontag-332_aids_the-fear-of-aids-imposes-on-an-act-whose_1519695.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/75d/susan-sontag-332_aids_the-fear-of-aids-imposes-on-an-act-whose_1519695.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/75d/susan-sontag-332_aids_the-fear-of-aids-imposes-on-an-act-whose_1519695.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The fear of AIDS imposes on an act whose ideal is an experience of pure presentness (and a creation of the…” — Susan Sontag", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 15, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "... liberal intellectualstend to have a classical theory of politics, in which the state has a monopoly of power; hoping thatthose in positions of authority may prove to be enlightened men, wielding power justly, they are natural, if cautious, allies of the \"establishment.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Susan Sontag" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/liberal-intellectualstend-to-have-a-classical-theory-of-politics-in/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/93b/susan-sontag-332_allies_liberal-intellectualstend-to-have-a-clas_453567.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/93b/susan-sontag-332_allies_liberal-intellectualstend-to-have-a-clas_453567.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/93b/susan-sontag-332_allies_liberal-intellectualstend-to-have-a-clas_453567.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“... liberal intellectualstend to have a classical theory of politics, in which the state has a monopoly of…” — Susan Sontag", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 16, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "Photography - the supreme form of travel, of tourism - is the principal modern means for enlarging the world. As a branch of art, photography's enterprise of world enlargement tends to specialize in the subjects felt to be challenging, transgressive. A photograph may be telling us: this too exists. And that. And that. (And it is all 'human.') 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This is not just because it would presumably show what Shakespeare really looked like, for even if the photograph were faded, barely legible, a brownish shadow, we would probably still prefer it to another glorious Holbein. 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The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say: “There is the surface. 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It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. 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. 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