Needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted. Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution.
Susan SontagI perceive value, I confer value, I create value, I even create โ or guarantee โ existence. Hence, my compulsion to make โlists.โ The things (Beethovenโs music, movies, business firms) wonโt exist unless I signify my interest in them by at least noting down their names. Nothing exists unless I maintain it (by my interest, or my potential interest). This is an ultimate, mostly subliminal anxiety. Hence, I must remain always, both in principle + actively, interested in everything. Taking all of knowledge as my province.
Susan SontagDecline of the letter, the rise of the notebook! One doesn't write to others any more; one writes to oneself.
Susan SontagIn a lot of writing or intellectual discourse we're starting to use that model: "Oh, this is where it comes from!" I would like to concentrate on work which is more resistant to that procedure, as I think fiction is.
Susan Sontag