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.
Susan SontagOurs is an age which consciously pursues health, and yet only believes in the reality of sickness.
Susan SontagPeople tend to become cynical about even the most appalling crisis if it seems to be dragging on, failing to come to term.
Susan SontagA writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world. That means trying to understand, take in, connect with, what wickedness human beings are capable of; and not be corrupted - made cynical, superficial - by this understanding.
Susan Sontag