Quote

One cannot use the life to interpret the work. But One can use the work to interpret the life.

Susan Sontag

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Use
Cannot
Work
Life
Interpret

More quotes by Susan Sontag

Image
Marriage is a sort of tacit hunting in couples. The world all in couples, each couple in its own little house, watching its own little interests and stewing in its own little privacy - it's the most repulsive thing in the world. One's got to get rid of the exclusiveness of married love.
Susan Sontag
Image
Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.
Susan Sontag
Image
I believe that courage is morally neutral. I can well imagine wicked people being brave and good people being timid or afraid. I don't consider it a moral virtue.
Susan Sontag
Image
Some of the exuberance of my essay-writing has gone because I'm worried about the uses they could serve.
Susan Sontag
Image
With more people, there are more voices to tune out.
Susan Sontag
Image
Books are not only the arbitrary sum of our dreams, and our memory. They also give us the model of self-transcende nce.
Susan Sontag
Image
Art is not consciousness per se, but rather its antidote- evolved from within consciousness itself.
Susan Sontag
Image
I make an idol of my moral consciousness. My pursuit of the good is corrupted by the sin of idolatry.
Susan Sontag
Image
Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers.
Susan Sontag
Image
It is the action of bodies on bodies, not bodies on minds, which the crowd enjoys.
Susan Sontag
Image
Everything has changed and nothing is changed.
Susan Sontag
Image
It's a pleasure to share one's memories. Everything remembered is dear, endearing, touching, precious. At least the past is safe though we didn't know it at the time. We know it now. Because it's in the past because we have survived.
Susan Sontag
Image
I don't write because there's an audience. I write because there is literature.
Susan Sontag
Image
You can always be quoted.
Susan Sontag
Image
There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera.
Susan Sontag
Image
That's what a community is: taking for granted certain assumptions, not having to start from zero every time. This is no longer true.
Susan Sontag
Image
As objects of contemplation, images of the atrocious can answer to several different needs. To steel oneself against weakness. To make oneself more numb. To acknowledge the existence of the incorrigible.
Susan Sontag
Image
Art is a form of consciousness.
Susan Sontag
Image
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.
Susan Sontag
Image
Cinema is a kind of pan-art. It can use, incorporate, engulf virtually any other art: the novel, poetry, theater, painting, sculpture, dance, music, architecture. Unlike opera, which is a (virtually) frozen art form, the cinema is and has been a fruitfully conservative medium of ideas and styles of emotions.
Susan Sontag