Susan Sontag Quotes About Literature

Quotes about: Literature

• Literature can train, and exercise, our ability to weep for those who are not us or ours.

  Susan Sontag

  Exercise, Literature, Ability

  Susan Sontag, Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (2003). “Susan Sontag: Ansprachen aus Anlass der Verleihung”

• To me, literature is a calling, even a kind of salvation. It connects me with an enterprise that is over 2,000 years old. What do we have from the past? Art and thought. That’s what lasts. That’s what continues to feed people and give them an idea of something better.

  Susan Sontag

  Art, Past, Years

  "Susan Sontag Finds Romance". Interview with Leslie Garis, www.nytimes.com. August 2, 1992.

• Perversity is the muse of modern literature.

  Susan Sontag

  Literature, Muse, Modern

  1966 Against Interpretation,'Camus' Notebooks'.

• I don't write because there's an audience. I write because there is literature.

  Susan Sontag

  Writing, Literature, Audience

• Translation is the circulatory system of the world's literatures

  Susan Sontag

  Literature, World, Circulatory System

  Susan Sontag (2007). “At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches”, p.226, Macmillan

• What pornographic literature does is precisely to drive a wedge between one's existence as a sexual being - while in ordinary life a healthy person is one who prevents such a gap from opening up

  Susan Sontag

  Opening Up, Healthy, Ordinary

• Literature was the passport to enter a larger life; that is, the zone of freedom. Literature was freedom. Especially in a time in which the values of reading and inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom.

  Susan Sontag

  Reading, Literature, Passports

  Susan Sontag (2007). “At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches”, p.266, Macmillan

• If literature has engaged me as a project, first as a reader, then as a writer, it is as an extension of my sympathies to other selves, other domains, other dreams, other territories.

  Susan Sontag

  Dream, Self, Literature

  Susan Sontag (2007). “At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches”, p.147, Macmillan

• writers are makers, not just transmitters, of myths. Literature offers not only myths but counter-myths, just as life offers counter-experiences - experiences that confound what you thought you thought, or felt, or believed.

  Susan Sontag

  Literature, Makers, Myth

  Susan Sontag's Speech upon being awarded the "Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels" (Peace Prize of the German Book Trade), Frankfurt Book Fair, www.tomdispatch.com. October 12, 2003.

• The wisdom of literature is quite antithetical to having opinions. 'Nothing is my last word about anything,' said Henry James. Furnishing opinions, even correct opinions - whenever asked - cheapens what novelists and poets do best, which is to sponsor reflectiveness, to pursue complexity. Information will never replace illumination.

  Susan Sontag

  Illumination, Novelists, Literature

  Susan Sontag (2007). “At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches”, p.154, Macmillan

• Pornography is one of the branches of literature - science fiction is another - aiming at disorientation, at psychic dislocation.

  Susan Sontag

  Psychics, Fiction, Literature

• I was enthralled and moved by Azar Nafisi's account of how she defied,
  and helped others to defy, radical Islam's war against women.
  Her memoir contains important and properly complex reflections
  about the ravages of theocracy, about thoughtfulness, and about the
  ordeals of freedom-as well as a stirring account of the pleasures and
  deepening of consciousness that result from an encounter with great
  literature and with an inspired teacher.

  Susan Sontag

  Teacher, War, Reflection

• Literature usually begets literature.

  Susan Sontag

  Literature, Begets

  Susan Sontag (2013). “Against Interpretation and Other Essays”, p.72, Penguin UK

• The ratio of authentic literature to trash in pornography may be somewhat lower than the ratio of novels of genuine literary meritto the entire volume of sub-literary fiction produced for mass taste. But it is probably not lower than, for instance, that of another somewhat shady sub-genre with a few first-rate books to its credit, science fiction.

  Susan Sontag

  Book, Literature, May

• The writer's first job is not to have opinions but to tell the truth... and refuse to be an accomplice of lies and misinformation. Literature is the house of nuance and contrariness against the voices of simplification.

  Susan Sontag

  Jobs, Lying, Voice

  Susan Sontag (2007). “At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches”, p.193, Macmillan

• One task of literature is to formulate questions and construct counterstatements to the reigning pieties. And even when art is not oppositional, the arts gravitate toward contrariness. Literature is dialogue: responsiveness. Literature might be described as the history of human responsiveness to what is alive and what is moribund as cultures evolve and interact with one another.

  Susan Sontag

  Art, Tasks, Culture

  Susan Sontag, Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (2003). “Susan Sontag: Ansprachen aus Anlass der Verleihung”

• I'm not sure at all that literature should be studied on the university level. ... Why should people study books? Isn't it rather silly to study Pride and Prejudice. Either you get it or you don't.

  Susan Sontag

  Education, Silly, Book

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