Susan Sontag Quotes

Elites presuppose masses.

It isn’t that I like it and I don’t like it — that’s too simple. Or, if you will, it isn’t “both yes and no.” It’s “this but also that.” I’d love to settle in on a strong feeling or reaction. But, having seen whatever I see, my mind keeps on going and I see something else. It’s that I quickly see the limitations of whatever I say or whatever judgment I make about anything. There’s a wonderful remark of Henry James: “Nothing is my last word on anything.” There’s always more to be said, more to be felt.

Es harto sabido que cuando las personas se aventuran por los confines últimos de la consciencia , arriesgan su cordura, o lo que es lo mismo, su humanidad.

La Imaginación Pornográfica

The function of writing is to explode one’s subject — transform it into something else. (Writing is a series of transformations).

La actitud realmente seria es aquella que interpreta el arte como un medio para lograr algo que quizá sólo se puede alcanzar cuando se abandona el arte

What is the secret of suddenly beginning to write, finding a voice? Try whiskey. Also being warm.

Women may be vain, but when a man is vain, it is beyond believing, for a man is willing to die for his vanity.

As long as art is understood and valued as an “absolute” activity, it will be a separate, elitist one. Elites presuppose masses. So far as the best art defines itself by essentially “priestly” aims, it presupposes and confirms the existence of a relatively passive, never fully initiated, voyeuristic laity which is regularly convoked to watch, listen, read, or hear — and then sent away.

For the modern consciousness, the artist (replacing the saint) is the exemplary sufferer. And among artists, the writer, the man of words, is the person to whom we look to be able best to express his suffering.

To have access to literature, world literature, was to escape the prison of national vanity, of philistinism, of compulsory provincialism, of inane schooling, of imperfect destinies and bad luck.

However painful they were, I needed my dreams — the metaphor for my introspection — if I was ever to be at peace.

El tiempo termina por elevar casi todas las fotografías, aun las más inexpertas, a la altura del arte.

Photographs that depict suffering shouldn't be beautiful, as captions shouldn't moralize.

La foto del amante escondida en la billetera de una mujer casada, el cartel fotográfico de una estrella de rock fijado sobre la cama de una adolescente, el retrato de propaganda del político prendido a la solapa del votante, las instantáneas de los hijos del taxista en la visera: todos los usos talismánicos de las fotografías expresan una actitud sentimental e implícitamente mágica; son tentativas de alcanzar o apropiarse de otra realidad.

Erkeklerin kendilerini erkekliklerini kanıtlamak zorunda hissettiklerini, oysa kadınların kadın sayılmak için kadınsılıklarını doğrulamak zorunda olmadığını hiç fark ettin mi? Bunun neden böyle olduğunu biliyor musun? İzin ver de, bir annenin ve bir kadının bilgeliğiyle bunu sana açıklayayım. Kadın olmak, insanların olması gerektiği gibi, sevgi ve huzur dolu olmaktır (...) oysa erkek olmak doğal olmayan, doğanın asla niyetlenmediği bir işe girişmek demektir. Erkek olma çabası, sürekli bozulan makineyi aşırı derecede zorlar (...) şiddet, cüretkarlık, hilekarlık, erkeğin kendini kanıtlamak için giriştiği bütün bu kibir dolu acınası bahaneler 'erkekçe eylemler' sayılıp değer verilir. Bunlar olmazsa o erkek olamaz. Tabii ki olamaz!