The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Search results for “susan sontag”

15-Year-Old Susan Sontag on the Explosive Elasticity of the Self
15-Year-Old Susan Sontag on the Explosive Elasticity of the Self

“All that animates me and is the original and responsive desire that constitutes my ‘self’ — all this takes on a definite shape and size — far too large to be contained by the structure I call my body.”

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The Conscience of Words: Susan Sontag on the Wisdom of Literature, the Danger of Opinions, and the Writer’s Task
The Conscience of Words: Susan Sontag on the Wisdom of Literature, the Danger of Opinions, and the Writer’s Task

“A writer ought not to be an opinion-machine… The job of the writer is to make us see the world as it is, full of many different claims and parts and experiences.”

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Susan Sontag on Selfies, Selfhood, and How the Camera Helps Us Navigate Complexity
Susan Sontag on Selfies, Selfhood, and How the Camera Helps Us Navigate Complexity

“There is a dialectical exchange between simplicity and complexity, like the one between self-revelation and self-concealment.”

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Susan Sontag on Storytelling, What It Means to Be a Good Human Being, and Her Advice to Writers
Susan Sontag on Storytelling, What It Means to Be a Good Human Being, and Her Advice to Writers

“Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world.”

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Rereading as Rebirth: Young Susan Sontag on Personal Growth, the Pleasures of Revisiting Beloved Books, and Her Rereading List
Rereading as Rebirth: Young Susan Sontag on Personal Growth, the Pleasures of Revisiting Beloved Books, and Her Rereading List

“Stop! I cannot think this fast! Or rather I cannot grow this fast!”

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Being Against Becoming: Susan Sontag on Our Ambivalent Historical Conscience
Being Against Becoming: Susan Sontag on Our Ambivalent Historical Conscience

“We understand something by locating it in a multi-determined temporal continuum. Existence is no more than the precarious attainment of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, present, and future.”

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Susan Sontag on How Photography Mediates Our Relationship with Life and Death
Susan Sontag on How Photography Mediates Our Relationship with Life and Death

“We no longer study the art of dying, a regular discipline and hygiene in older cultures; but all eyes, at rest, contain that knowledge. The body knows. And the camera shows, inexorably.”

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The Aesthetic of Silence: Susan Sontag on Art as a Form of Spirituality and the Paradoxical Role of Silence in Creative Culture
The Aesthetic of Silence: Susan Sontag on Art as a Form of Spirituality and the Paradoxical Role of Silence in Creative Culture

“The art of our time is noisy with appeals for silence. A coquettish, even cheerful nihilism. One recognizes the imperative of silence, but goes on speaking anyway.”

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Susan Sontag on the Trouble with Treating Art and Cultural Material as “Content”
Susan Sontag on the Trouble with Treating Art and Cultural Material as “Content”

“Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art… Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all.”

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Susan Sontag on the Perils of Publicity in Creative Work
Susan Sontag on the Perils of Publicity in Creative Work

“Publicity in general is a very destructive thing, for any artist.”

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