Susan Sontag Quotes

If the chemistry between me and the artist is good, then that's half the battle.

I'm pretty much open to anyone who's unique and has mutual appreciation in the music as BTS.

If you connect with an artist because of what they make as a body of work, you feel like they're your friend. You feel like you're on the journey of connection with them because they see the world the same way you do. That's so powerful, and if you use that, you can genuinely change minds.

I love trying to forge a contract between creator and audience in which we are able to meet halfway, each injecting a part of our own experiences into a story that's being told.

[S]he leans into this guy and rocks her head like I’m making this music for her, when if I could, I would take it all away and give her as much silence as she’s given me pain.

I am alone so I dream of the being who has cured my solitude, who would be cured by solitudes. With its life, it brought me the idealizations of life, all the idealizations which give life a double, which lead life toward it summits, which make the dreamer too live by splitting.

The best of life is conversation, and the greatest success is confidence, or perfect understanding between sincere people.

I know that I don't have a perfect performance that I bring to set. I bring ideas to set, and I'm more than willing for those to be affected and be malleable, based on what the other person gives me.

I understand people's suffering, people's pain, more than you will every know yourself.

Friendship is a give and take. You have to have a strong relationship with your friend and I think you have to offer them something and they have to offer you something and that’s to always learn from it.

Your own pain is involuntary; you feel overwhelmed and have no control. When feeling the pain of others, there is an element of discomfort, but there also is a level of stability because you are voluntarily accepting pain. It gives you a sense of confidence.

The ability to understand the cause of your own suffering gives you the ability to understand ours.

And in this moment, I realize one reason it's so great to have a best friend is sometimes, like right now, Cal and I are thinking the very same thing.

There must be understanding between the artist and the people. In the best ages of art that has always been the case. Genius can probably run on ahead and seek out new ways. But the good artists who follow after genius — and I count myself among these — have to restore the lost connection once more.

"I hope to-morrow will be a fine day, Lane." "It never is, sir." "Lane, you're a perfect pessimist." "I do my best to give satisfaction, sir."

All I meant was that people take their same old lives wherever they go. No place is perfect enough to strip you of that. And some places have a way of magnifying your demons, or of, I don't know, giving them pep pills.

Forgiveness has its comforts, but it can never give you back what you've lost.

There's a secret to get through loss, pain and grief. If we're alone we can't see who we are. When we join the club, other people become the mirror. Through them, we see ourselves and gain an understanding of what we're going through. Then slowly, real slowly, we learn to accept who we see in the mirror. Then you become the mirror for them; by being honest about who you are, you'll help them learn to love and accept themselves.

We are hardwired to connect with others, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering.

And if I were to ask myself from what literature we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of the Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw the corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human a life... again I should point to India.

I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.

Whether it's friendship or love. The essence of is two people trying to share something. When I think of how I met my best friends, it was always like love at first sight.

In India the government is very chaotic and poorly run. They are forced into action by public pressure. When it's a larger event, there's a lot more pressure - to do something, to investigate, to give some kind of compensation to the victims. With the smaller attacks, the pain is concentrated on those affected, because they've not just been forgotten by everyone else, which is normal, they've also been forgotten by the government, which lets the cases drag on for years in the courts.

No pains must be spared to wipe out all feeling of diffidence, embarrassment, or shame on the part of those receiving relief; [we] must be one great family of equals. The spiritual welfare of those on relief must receive especial care and be earnestly and prayerfully fostered. A system which gives relief for work or service will go far to reaching these ends.

It is better to give a lick than receive one.