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Portrait of Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag

(1933–2004) Women's Rights Activist United States

644 quotes in 2071 categories

Susan Sontag was a women's rights activist from the United States, best known for On Photography.

Quick Facts About Susan Sontag

Born: January 16, 1933
Died: December 28, 2004
Nationality: United States
Profession: Women's Rights Activist
Notable works: On Photography
Known for: Illness as Metaphor, AIDS and Its Metaphors, Against Interpretation, On Photography, Under the Sign of Saturn
Spouse: Philip Rieff

About Susan Sontag

Susan Lee Sontag was an American writer and critic. She primarily wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp' ", in 1964. Her best-known works include the critical works Against Interpretation (1966), On Photography (1977), Illness as Metaphor (1978) and Regarding the Pain of Others (2003), the short story "The Way We Live Now" (1986) and the novels The Volcano Lover (1992) and In America (1999).

Biography source: Wikipedia

Awards & Honors

Peace Prize of the German Publishers' and Booksellers' Association Jerusalem Prize National Book Award George Polk Award Guggenheim Fellowship MacArthur Fellows Program National Book Award for Fiction Harvard Centennial Medal

Show 3 more awards

Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism Princess of Asturias Literary Prize

Quotes by Susan Sontag · Page 26

Our appreciations, it was felt, could be so much more inclusive if we said that something, instead of being beautiful, was 'interesting'.

Appreciation

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All great art contains at its center contemplation, a dynamic contemplation.

Art

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I believe that courage is morally neutral. I can well imagine wicked people being brave and good people being timid or afraid.…

Believe

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One doesn't need to know the artist's private intentions. The work tells all.

Art

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[On marriage:] It is an institution committed to the dulling of the feelings.

Committed

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A great writer has all 4 - but you can still be a good writer with only 1 and 2.

Good writers

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A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. Like a wood fire in a room, photographs-especially those of people,…

Absence

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Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading.

Bigs

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A fiction about soft or easy deaths is part of the mythology of most diseases that are not considered shameful or demeaning.

Death

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The only interesting ideas are heresies

Heresy

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Images are more real than anyone could have supposed.

Inspirational

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You can always be quoted.

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Norman Mailer in his writings is ultimately more concerned with success than with danger; danger is only a means to success.

Concerned

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Real art has the capacity to make us nervous.

Art

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Art is not only about something; it is something. A work of art is a thing in the world, not just a…

Art

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Cancer patients are lied to, not just because the disease is (or is thought to be) a death sentence, but because it…

Breast cancer

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A photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened. The picture may distort; but there is always a presumption that…

Given

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“Literature can train, and exercise, our ability to weep for those who are not us or ours. Who would we be if…

Books

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The only story that seems worth writing is a cry, a shot, a scream. A story should break the reader's heart.

Books

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Susan Sontag by topic

Photography (99) Art (81) Writing (64) Photograph (59) People (51) World (45) Time (44) Inspirational (43) Love (41) Life (40) Books (40) Way (29) Thinking (25) Ifs (24) May (23)