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 SontagPart of the puzzle, surely, lies in the disconnect between official rhetoric and lived realities. Americans are constantly extolling โtraditionsโ; litanies to family values are at the center of every politicianโs discourse. And yet the culture of America is extremely corrosive of family life, indeed of all traditions except those redefined as โidentitiesโ that fit in the larger patterns of distinctiveness, cooperation, and openness to innovation.
Susan SontagOne can know worlds one has not experienced, choose a response to life that has never been offered, create an inwardness utterly strong and fruitful.
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 SontagGide and I have attained such perfect intellectual communion that I experience the appropriate labor pains for every thought he gives birth to!
Susan SontagCompassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. People don't become inured to what they are shown โ if that's the right way to describe what happens โ because of the quantity of images dumped on them. It is passivity that dulls feeling.
Susan Sontag