---
title: "3 Imprisoning Reality Quotes By Susan Sontag"
description: "3 Imprisoning Reality quotes by Susan Sontag. Plus more from Susan Sontag and more Imprisoning Reality sayings from other authors."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6d2/susan-sontag-332_past_photographs-are-a-way-of-imprisoning-rea_229613.jpg"
---

> [Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality, understood as recalcitrant, inaccessible; of making it stand still. One can't possess reality, one can…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/photographs-are-a-way-of-imprisoning-reality-understood-as/)

[Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6d2/susan-sontag-332_past_photographs-are-a-way-of-imprisoning-rea_229613.jpg)

> [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…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/photographs-are-a-way-of-imprisoning-reality-one-can-t-possess/)

[Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/792/susan-sontag-332_past_photographs-are-a-way-of-imprisoning-rea_1568864.jpg)

> [Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality, understood as recalcitrant, inaccessible; of making it stand still. Or they enlarge a reality that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/photographs-are-a-way-of-imprisoning-reality-understood-as-2/)

[Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5ea/susan-sontag-332_felt_photographs-are-a-way-of-imprisoning-rea_2364131.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/)

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