850 Quotes by Susan Sontag

A photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened. The picture may distort; but there is always a presumption that something exists, or did exist, which is like what’s in the picture

The problems of this world are only truly solved in two ways: by extinction or duplication.

I'm not sure at all that literature should be studied on the university level. ... Why should people study books? Isn't it rather silly to study Pride and Prejudice. Either you get it or you don't.

There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera.

There is a great deal that either has to be given up or be taken away from you if you are going to succeed in writing a body of work.

People robbed of their past seem to make the most fervent picture takers, at home and abroad.

Photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire

It is not suffering as such that is most deeply feared but suffering that degrades.

People tend to become cynical about even the most appalling crisis if it seems to be dragging on, failing to come to term.