Susan Sontag Biography

Occup.Author
FromUSA
BornJanuary 28, 1933
New York City, New York, USA
DiedDecember 28, 2004
New York City, New York, USA
CauseLeukemia
Aged71 years
Susan Sontag was an American author, filmmaker, as well as human rights lobbyist that played an essential duty fit the cultural landscape of the United States in the latter part of the 20th Century. Birthed in New York City in 1933, Sontag matured in a Jewish family and invested most of her childhood reading publications and checking out the city's social scene. She would certainly later create that her daddy's fatality from tuberculosis had an extensive impact on her advancement, as did her own round with the illness at age 15.

In 1951, Sontag enlisted at the College of Chicago, where she examined philosophy, literature, and looks. She left after a year and also relocated to New york city, where she wed Philip Rieff, a sociology professor. The pair had a kid, David, yet at some point separated in 1958. Sontag then began a series of relationships with both males and females, declaring herself as bisexual while doing so.

Sontag's intellectual interest led her to travel thoroughly throughout the 1960s as well as 70s, often to politically volatile regions such as Vietnam, Cuba, and also Palestine. Her journeys motivated a lot of her writing, including her well-known collection of essays "Versus Analysis" (1966) and her novel "The Volcano Lover" (1992), which was set against the background of the Napoleonic Wars.

Sontag was perhaps best known for her work as a social movie critic, in which she checked out the art, literature, and also national politics of her time, often tough conventional wisdom and provoking controversy. Her essay "Notes on 'Camp'" (1964) is thought about a critical work in the area of queer theory, while her publication "Disease as Metaphor" (1978) analyzed the methods which social attitudes towards disease impact the lived experiences of individuals.

Throughout her life, Sontag was a singing advocate for human rights, particularly for those living under oppressive regimes. In the 1990s, she took a trip to Bosnia and also Herzegovina to record the atrocities dedicated versus Muslim ladies during the Bosnian War, an experience that would later on educate her book "Relating to the Discomfort of Others" (2003). Sontag was also an advocate for the legal rights of help individuals, offering on the board of the American Foundation for AIDS Research and speaking out against the preconception associated with the illness.

Sontag's impact on American culture was not restricted to her writing as well as advocacy; she was additionally dearly liked by a number of the artists and also authors of her time. She was buddies with the likes of Woody Allen, Annie Leibovitz, and Joan Didion, and also counted among her admirers such stars as Lucinda Childs, Philip Glass, as well as Edward Said. After battling cancer cells for years, Sontag passed away in 2004 at the age of 71. Her legacy as a courageous thinker, writer, as well as advocate for justice remains to inspire generations of visitors and activists.

Our collection contains 49 quotes who is written / told by Susan, under the main topic Intelligence.

Related authors: Philo (Philosopher), Woody Allen (Director), Kenneth Burke (Philosopher), Joan Didion (Author), Philip Glass (Composer), Edward Said (Writer), Paul Bailey (Novelist), Alison Lurie (Novelist), Lawrence Taylor (Athlete), Joseph Brodsky (Poet)

Susan Sontag Famous Works:
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49 Famous quotes by Susan Sontag

Small: The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions
"The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions"
Small: I dont want to express alienation. It isnt what I feel. Im interested in various kinds of passionate en
"I don't want to express alienation. It isn't what I feel. I'm interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up"
Small: Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awa
"Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance"
Small: Any critic is entitled to wrong judgments, of course. But certain lapses of judgment indicate the radic
"Any critic is entitled to wrong judgments, of course. But certain lapses of judgment indicate the radical failure of an entire sensibility"
Small: Intelligence is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas
"Intelligence is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas"
Small: What is the most beautiful in virile men is something feminine what is most beautiful in feminine women
"What is the most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine"
Small: The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of ou
"The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes"
Small: I envy paranoids they actually feel people are paying attention to them
"I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them"
Small: I do not think white America is committed to granting equality to the American Negro. This is a passion
"I do not think white America is committed to granting equality to the American Negro. This is a passionately racist country; it will continue to be so in the foreseeable future"
Small: Books are funny little portable pieces of thought
"Books are funny little portable pieces of thought"
Small: Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward
"Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe"
Small: The love of the famous, like all strong passions, is quite abstract. Its intensity can be measured math
"The love of the famous, like all strong passions, is quite abstract. Its intensity can be measured mathematically, and it is independent of persons"
Small: Surrealism is a bourgeois disaffection that its militants thought it universal is only one of the signs
"Surrealism is a bourgeois disaffection; that its militants thought it universal is only one of the signs that it is typically bourgeois"
Small: Most people in this society who arent actively mad are, at best, reformed or potential lunatics
"Most people in this society who aren't actively mad are, at best, reformed or potential lunatics"
Small: AIDS obliges people to think of sex as having, possibly, the direst consequences: suicide. Or murder
"AIDS obliges people to think of sex as having, possibly, the direst consequences: suicide. Or murder"
Small: The past itself, as historical change continues to accelerate, has become the most surreal of subjects
"The past itself, as historical change continues to accelerate, has become the most surreal of subjects - making it possible... to see a new beauty in what is vanishing"
Small: Sanity is a cozy lie
"Sanity is a cozy lie"
Small: Ambition, if it feeds at all, does so on the ambition of others
"Ambition, if it feeds at all, does so on the ambition of others"
Small: A fiction about soft or easy deaths is part of the mythology of most diseases that are not considered s
"A fiction about soft or easy deaths is part of the mythology of most diseases that are not considered shameful or demeaning"
Small: What we need is to use what we have
"What we need is to use what we have"
Small: The painter constructs, the photographer discloses
"The painter constructs, the photographer discloses"
Small: It is not the position, but the disposition
"It is not the position, but the disposition"
Small: In the final analysis, style is art. And art is nothing more or less than various modes of stylized, de
"In the final analysis, style is art. And art is nothing more or less than various modes of stylized, dehumanized representation"
Small: For those who live neither with religious consolations about death nor with a sense of death (or of any
"For those who live neither with religious consolations about death nor with a sense of death (or of anything else) as natural, death is the obscene mystery, the ultimate affront, the thing that cannot be controlled. It can only be denied"
Small: As photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to t
"As photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure"
Small: Camp is a vision of the world in terms of style - but a particular style. It is the love of the exagger
""Camp" is a vision of the world in terms of style - but a particular style. It is the love of the exaggerated"
Small: The camera makes everyone a tourist in other peoples reality, and eventually in ones own
"The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own"
Small: Life is not significant details, illuminated by a flash, fixed forever. Photographs are
"Life is not significant details, illuminated by a flash, fixed forever. Photographs are"
Small: It is not altogether wrong to say that there is no such thing as a bad photograph - only less interesti
"It is not altogether wrong to say that there is no such thing as a bad photograph - only less interesting, less relevant, less mysterious ones"
Small: Although none of the rules for becoming more alive is valid, it is healthy to keep on formulating them
"Although none of the rules for becoming more alive is valid, it is healthy to keep on formulating them"
Small: A familys photograph album is generally about the extended family and, often, is all that remains of it
"A family's photograph album is generally about the extended family and, often, is all that remains of it"
Small: My idea of a writer: someone interested in everything
"My idea of a writer: someone interested in everything"
Small: It is not suffering as such that is most deeply feared but suffering that degrades
"It is not suffering as such that is most deeply feared but suffering that degrades"
Small: In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the one who invents it
"In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the one who invents it"
Small: I was not looking for my dreams to interpret my life, but rather for my life to interpret my dreams
"I was not looking for my dreams to interpret my life, but rather for my life to interpret my dreams"
Small: What pornography is really about, ultimately, isnt sex but death
"What pornography is really about, ultimately, isn't sex but death"
Small: The truth is balance. However the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie
"The truth is balance. However the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie"
Small: The ideology of capitalism makes us all into connoisseurs of liberty - of the indefinite expansion of p
"The ideology of capitalism makes us all into connoisseurs of liberty - of the indefinite expansion of possibility"
Small: The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art - and, by analogy, our own experien
"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. 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"
Small: Existence is no more than the precarious attainment of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, p
"Existence is no more than the precarious attainment of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, present, and future"
Small: AIDS occupies such a large part in our awareness because of what it has been taken to represent.
"AIDS occupies such a large part in our awareness because of what it has been taken to represent. It seems the very model of all the catastrophes privileged populations feel await them"
Small: The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. If there were no speaking or w
"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"
Small: The taste for quotations (and for the juxtaposition of incongruous quotations) is a Surrealist taste
"The taste for quotations (and for the juxtaposition of incongruous quotations) is a Surrealist taste"
Small: The becoming of man is the history of the exhaustion of his possibilities
"The becoming of man is the history of the exhaustion of his possibilities"
Small: Lying is the most simple form of self-defence
"Lying is the most simple form of self-defence"
Small: Lying is an elementary means of self-defense
"Lying is an elementary means of self-defense"
Small: Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art
"Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art"
Small: Depression is melancholy minus its charms - the animation, the fits
"Depression is melancholy minus its charms - the animation, the fits"
Small: Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence o
"Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens and real diseases are useful material"