Quote

As photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure.

Susan Sontag

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Susan Sontag
Age: 71 †
Born: 1933
Born: January 16
Died: 2004
Died: December 28
Author
Essayist
Feminist
Film Critic
Film Director
Historian
Human Rights Activist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
New York City
New York
Susan Rosenblatt
People
Space
Help
Unreal
Helping
Insecure
Past
Photographs
Also
Insecurity
Give
Imaginary
Take
Possession
Giving
Photograph

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Thinking, writing are ultimately questions of stamina.
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Fatal illness has always been viewed as a test of moral character, but in the nineteenth century there is a great reluctance to let anybody flunk the test.
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Paintings invariably sum up photographs usually do not. Photographic images are pieces of evidence in an ongoing biography or history. And one photograph, unlike one painting, implies that there will be others.
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Never worry about being obsessive. I like obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art
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I love to read the way people love to watch television.
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Just as a camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a subliminal murder - a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time.
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Loeb has been doing wonderfully patient work, exploring the American conscience from the inside. I regard him as something of a national treasure.
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Art is seduction, not rape.
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Most of my reading is rereading.
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Unfortunately, moral beauty in art - like physical beauty in a person - is extremely perishable. It is nowhere so durable as artistic or intellectual beauty. Moral beauty has a tendency to decay very rapidly into sententiousness or untimeliness.
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Taste has no system and no proofs.
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I don't write because there's an audience. I write because there is literature.
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What makes me feel strong? Being in love and work. I must work.
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The particular qualities and intentions of photographs tend to be swallowed up in the generalized pathos of time past.
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When something is just bad, it's often because it is too mediocre in its ambition. The artist hasn't attempted to do anything really outlandish.
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Intelligence is not necessarily a good thing, something to value or cultivate. It's more like a fifth wheel - necessary or desirable when things break down. When things go well, it's better to be stupid ... Stupidity is as much a value as intelligence.
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All understanding begins with our not accepting the world as it appears.
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