Susan Sontag Quotes

The American doctrinaire is the converse of the American demagogue, and, in this way, is scarcely less injurious to the public. The first deals in poetry, the last in cant. He is as much a visionary on one side, as the extreme theoretical democrat is a visionary on the other.

These days in particular it seems not only unavoidable but even irresponsible to not acknowledge politics in some way.

It's funny, but thinking back on it now, I realize that this particular point in time, as I stood there blinking in the deserted hall, was the one point at which I might have chosen to do something very much different from what I actually did. But of course I didn't see this crucial moment for what it actually was; I suppose we never do. Instead, I only yawned, and shook myself from the momentary daze that had come upon me, and went on my way down the stairs.

God might work on mysterious ways, but hell worked on efficient ones.

If we're all going to hell in a handbasket, we might as well make it a party on the way down

I realized that I hated politics. I mean that is you know... I realized being in the jungle that what I had thought I could do, I mean changing the way politics were being done in Colombia, was not possible the way I wanted to do it - by confronting, by denouncing.

I've got to live my life the way I feel is right for me. Might not be right for you, but it's right for me.

God's promises are not always fulfilled as quickly as or in the way we might hope; they come according to His timing and in His ways.

If one could drown in the grass, thought Elphie, that might be the best way to die.

I have to have everything in my life completely fixed and perfect and cleaned up and I have to be complete with everyone in my life and I have seven days in which to do that. So I might make it to day three or four, but I've never made it all the way to day seven.

Because of the way the business is structured, I have sometimes turned down scripts that I might otherwise have accepted had I known who was directing them.

When a poem might become a song, then certain parts are repeated and might become a refrain or a chorus, so they change in that way. But it's more the nature of the words and what they're saying that determines whether it's a poem or a song.

I might have become a minor celebrity but royalty checks were a long way off.

And then she moved from shock to grief the way she might enter another room.

Another thing I like to say to my students is this: "How many Corinthians read Paul's letters?" The answer is none. They couldn't have cared less! There aren't even any Corinthians left, but Paul's letters persist. Paul was not a professional writer. He was called to something, and he sent his letters. That's a good way to look at it. That you might be making something that nobody cares about, but you have to do it. It's not that people should care, but that you should care.

I've always known who I am. I might not work perfectly, or be like them, but that's okay. I know I work in my own way.

We might remember ... not to fear death; it is the only way to be cleansed.

Phil was mumbling that Reuben might become a writer after all and writers had a way of "redeeming everything that ever happens to them.

To be lost and forgotten-to be abandoned-is a shared and terrible fear, just as our fondest hope, as we grow older, is that we might leave some parts of us behind in the hearts of those we love and in that way live on.

Look at it this way: I might be saying you're fat, but at least I'm not punching you in the face.' Are those the only options?' Not always. Just sometimes.

I've attempted to flood the path with light where I could, and where I could not I've wanted at least to hold up a candle so that others coming this way might not stumble too painfully.

If a movie goes south, it might not capsize me the way it used to. But I still have a terrible fear of failure. I'm a huge worrier.

I understood that I might fail, but I wouldn't let it happen because I changed my compass along the way.

By the way, the Harry Potter series is literature, in spite of what some people might say. The way J.K. Rowling worked that world out is quite something.

Mark Twain is a universe, and he is also a kind of American authority figure. He can say things to America that other people can't say, in a way that can truly be heard.