--- title: "23 May Quotes By Susan Sontag" description: "23 May quotes by Susan Sontag. Plus more from Susan Sontag and more May sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7bc/susan-sontag-332_appetite_the-appetite-for-thinking-must-be-regula_538.jpg" --- > [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/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7bc/susan-sontag-332_appetite_the-appetite-for-thinking-must-be-regula_538.jpg) > [It hurts to love. It's like giving yourself to be flayed and knowing that at any moment the other person may just…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/it-hurts-to-love-it-s-like-giving-yourself-to-be-flayed-and-knowing/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/05f/susan-sontag-332_giving_it-hurts-to-love-it-s-like-giving-yourse_213454.jpg) > [The truth is balance. However the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-truth-is-balance-however-the-opposite-of-truth-which-is-unbalance/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/95d/susan-sontag-332_balance_the-truth-is-balance-however-the-opposit_1876381.jpg) > [The purpose of art is always, ultimately, to give pleasure - though our sensibilities may take time to catch up with the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-purpose-of-art-is-always-ultimately-to-give-pleasure-though-our/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/814/susan-sontag-332_art_the-purpose-of-art-is-always-ultimately_3098496.jpg) > [The only ideals allowed are healthy ones - those everyone may aspire to, or comfortably imagine oneself possessing.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-only-ideals-allowed-are-healthy-ones-those-everyone-may-aspire-to/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/46a/susan-sontag-332_aspire_the-only-ideals-allowed-are-healthy-ones_2808736.jpg) > [The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-hard-truth-is-that-what-may-be-acceptable-in-elite-culture-may/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5da/susan-sontag-332_acceptable_the-hard-truth-is-that-what-may-be-accep_1330095.jpg) > [The ratio of authentic literature to trash in pornography may be somewhat lower than the ratio of novels of genuine literary meritto…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-ratio-of-authentic-literature-to-trash-in-pornography-may-be/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/c84/susan-sontag-332_book_the-ratio-of-authentic-literature-to-tra_1152862.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) > [Indeed, the very first acknowledgment (as far as I am aware) of the attraction of mutilated bodies occurs in a founding description…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/indeed-the-very-first-acknowledgment-as-far-as-i-am-aware-of-the/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/950/susan-sontag-332_angry_indeed-the-very-first-acknowledgment-as_2045374.jpg) > [Each of us carries a room within ourselves, waiting to be furnished and peopled, and if you listen closely, you may need…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/each-of-us-carries-a-room-within-ourselves-waiting-to-be-furnished/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/023/susan-sontag-332_communication_each-of-us-carries-a-room-within-ourselv_2114780.jpg) > [One could plausibly argue that it is for quite sound reasons that the whole capacity for sexual ecstasy is inaccessible to most…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/one-could-plausibly-argue-that-it-is-for-quite-sound-reasons-that-the/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9a4/susan-sontag-332_amenable_one-could-plausibly-argue-that-it-is-for_1821483.jpg) > [The need for truth is not constant; no more than is the need for repose. An idea which is a distortion may…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-need-for-truth-is-not-constant-no-more-than-is-the-need-for/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b6d/susan-sontag-332_balance_the-need-for-truth-is-not-constant-no-mo_2562686.jpg) > [A photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened. The picture may distort; but there is always a presumption that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/a-photograph-passes-for-incontrovertible-proof-that-a-given-thing/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/773/susan-sontag-332_given_a-photograph-passes-for-incontrovertible_3218196.jpg) > [The quote is always fascinating because it changes out of context, becomes different and sometimes more mysterious. It has a directness and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-quote-is-always-fascinating-because-it-changes-out-of-context/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/55a/susan-sontag-332_art_the-quote-is-always-fascinating-because_913987.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) > [Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism -- victimless collecting, as it were... in a world that is…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/though-collecting-quotations-could-be-considered-as-merely-an-ironic-2/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/88a/susan-sontag-332_becoming_though-collecting-quotations-could-be-co_1306608.jpg) > [Enemies are somewhere else, as the fighting is almost always “over there,” with Islamic fundamentalism now replacing Russian and Chinese communism as…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/enemies-are-somewhere-else-as-the-fighting-is-almost-always-over/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/eef/susan-sontag-332_chinese_enemies-are-somewhere-else-as-the-fighti_501235.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) > [Time may enhance what seems simply dogged or lacking in fantasy now because we are too close to it, because it resembles…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/time-may-enhance-what-seems-simply-dogged-or-lacking-in-fantasy-now/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ce6/susan-sontag-332_able_time-may-enhance-what-seems-simply-dogge_1450358.jpg) > [Self-censorship, the most important and most successful form of censorship, is rampant. Debate is identified with dissent, which is in turn identified…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/self-censorship-the-most-important-and-most-successful-form-of/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/425/susan-sontag-332_able_self-censorship-the-most-important-and-m_671851.jpg) > [Norman Mailer records in his recent essays and public appearances his perfecting of himself as a virile instrument of letters; he is…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/norman-mailer-records-in-his-recent-essays-and-public-appearances-his/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/dc8/susan-sontag-332_appearance_norman-mailer-records-in-his-recent-essa_2514689.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) > [Photographs may be more memorable than moving images, because they are a neat slice of time, not a flow. Each still photograph…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/photographs-may-be-more-memorable-than-moving-images-because-they-are/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6ea/susan-sontag-332_flow_photographs-may-be-more-memorable-than-m_1904083.jpg) ## Other authors on May ## 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/may/susan-sontag/#itemlist", "name": "23 May Quotes By Susan Sontag", "numberOfItems": 23, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "the appetite for thinking must be regulated, as all sensible people know, for it may stifle one's life.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Susan Sontag" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-appetite-for-thinking-must-be-regulated-as-all-sensible-people/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7bc/susan-sontag-332_appetite_the-appetite-for-thinking-must-be-regula_538.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7bc/susan-sontag-332_appetite_the-appetite-for-thinking-must-be-regula_538.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7bc/susan-sontag-332_appetite_the-appetite-for-thinking-must-be-regula_538.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“the appetite for thinking must be regulated, as all sensible people know, for it may stifle one's life.” — Susan Sontag", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "It hurts to love. 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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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The course of modern history having already sapped the traditions and shattered the living wholes in which precious objects once found their place, the collector may now in good conscience go about excavating the choicer, more emblematic fragments.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Susan Sontag" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/though-collecting-quotations-could-be-considered-as-merely-an-ironic-2/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/88a/susan-sontag-332_becoming_though-collecting-quotations-could-be-co_1306608.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/88a/susan-sontag-332_becoming_though-collecting-quotations-could-be-co_1306608.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/88a/susan-sontag-332_becoming_though-collecting-quotations-could-be-co_1306608.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism -- victimless collecting, as…” — Susan Sontag", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 17, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "Enemies are somewhere else, as the fighting is almost always “over there,” with Islamic fundamentalism now replacing Russian and Chinese communism as the implacable, furtive menace. 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Debate is identified with dissent, which is in turn identified with disloyalty. There is a widespread feeling that, in this new, open-ended emergency, we may not be able to 'afford' our traditional freedoms.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Susan Sontag" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/self-censorship-the-most-important-and-most-successful-form-of/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/425/susan-sontag-332_able_self-censorship-the-most-important-and-m_671851.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/425/susan-sontag-332_able_self-censorship-the-most-important-and-m_671851.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/425/susan-sontag-332_able_self-censorship-the-most-important-and-m_671851.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Self-censorship, the most important and most successful form of censorship, is rampant. 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Each still photograph is a privileged moment turned into a slim object that one can keep and look at again.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Susan Sontag" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/photographs-may-be-more-memorable-than-moving-images-because-they-are/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6ea/susan-sontag-332_flow_photographs-may-be-more-memorable-than-m_1904083.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6ea/susan-sontag-332_flow_photographs-may-be-more-memorable-than-m_1904083.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6ea/susan-sontag-332_flow_photographs-may-be-more-memorable-than-m_1904083.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Photographs may be more memorable than moving images, because they are a neat slice of time, not a flow…” — Susan Sontag", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/may/susan-sontag/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/may/susan-sontag/", "name": "May Quotes by Susan Sontag", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/may/susan-sontag/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7bc/susan-sontag-332_appetite_the-appetite-for-thinking-must-be-regula_538.jpg" }, "description": "23 May quotes by Susan Sontag. 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