Susan Sontag Quotes
Susan Sontag was a 20th and early 21st-century American writer, critic, and political activist, one of the most prominent public intellectuals of her generation. Her essays, including Against Interpretation, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Regarding the Pain of Others, and Notes on Camp, brought continental philosophical and aesthetic concerns to a wide American readership. The quotes below are attributed to Susan Sontag, organized by topic.
Susan Sontag on Death
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Attributed to Susan Sontag:
“All photographs are memento mori.”
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Attributed to Susan Sontag:
“What pornography is really about, ultimately, isn't sex but death.”
Susan Sontag on Knowledge
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Attributed to Susan Sontag:
“To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed.”
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Attributed to Susan Sontag:
“Reading is the quintessential passion.”
Susan Sontag on Life
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Attributed to Susan Sontag:
“Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship.”
Susan Sontag on Love
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Attributed to Susan Sontag:
“In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art.”
Susan Sontag on Mind
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Attributed to Susan Sontag:
“Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.”
Susan Sontag on Time
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Attributed to Susan Sontag:
“Time eventually positions most photographs, even the most amateurish, at the level of art.”