Susan Sontag’s Greatest Quotes are many. Let’s take a deep dive.
Susan Sontag (1933-2004) was one of America’s most influential intellectuals, known for her incisive cultural criticism, essays, novels, and reflections on art and creativity. Her thoughts on the creative process continue to inspire writers, artists, and thinkers worldwide.
Let’s breakdown some of Sontag’s greatest quotes.
On the Purpose of Writing
“The writer must be four people: 1) The nut, the obsédé, the person who cares about some specified affair more than anybody else conceivably could. 2) The moron. 3) The stylist. 4) The critic, the person who has a standard of worthwhile work and who doesn’t cheat.”
“A writer is someone who pays attention to the world — a writer is a professional observer.”
“The only interesting answers are those which destroy the questions.”
“Writing is a little door. Some fantasies, like big pieces of furniture, won’t come through.”
On Inspiration and Process
“I don’t care about someone being intelligent; any situation between people, when they are really human with each other, produces ‘intelligence.'”
“The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. If there were no speaking or writing, there would be no truth about anything. There would only be what is.”
“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead.”
“My library is an archive of longings.”
“The only story that seems worth writing is a cry, a shot, a scream. A story should break the reader’s heart.”
On Art and Creativity
“Art is not only about something; it is something. A work of art is a thing in the world, not just a text or commentary on the world.”
“Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art.”
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art — and, by analogy, our own experience — more, rather than less, real to us.”
“To paraphrase several sages: Nobody can think and hit someone at the same time.”
“Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”
On Challenging Oneself
“I’m interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up.”
“What I write is meant to reveal meaning, though that doesn’t mean it’s an attempt to stop the reader and say ‘Look! This is the exact meaning of something!'”
“Never worry about being obsessive. I like obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art.”
“The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
“Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world.”
On Perspective and Understanding
“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. Literature was the passport to enter a larger life; that is, the zone of freedom.”
“A novel worth reading is an education of the heart. It enlarges your sense of human possibility, of what human nature is, of what happens in the world. It’s a creator of inwardness.”
“In the final analysis, style is art. And art is nothing more or less than various modes of stylized, dehumanized representation.”
“What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more.”
“We live in a culture in which intelligence is denied relevance altogether, in a search for radical innocence, or is defended as an instrument of authority and repression. In my view, the only intelligence worth defending is critical, dialectical, skeptical, desimplifying.”
Final Reflections
“Be serious, be passionate, wake up.”
“Risk more, fear less.”
“What we need is to use what we have.”
“The life of the creative person is led, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes.”
“It’s only possible to prefer something to something else, it’s not possible to have an abstract preference for everything. You have to give up a great deal.”
Books By Susan Sontag
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Here’s a list and links –
Against Interpretation And Other Essays
