AIDS occupies such a large part in our awareness because of what it has been taken to represent. It seems the very model of all the catastrophes privileged populations feel await them. – Susan Sontag
Depression is melancholy minus its charms — the animation, the fits. – Susan Sontag
Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe. – Susan Sontag
I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them. – Susan Sontag
From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8, 000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone. – Barbara Ehrenreich
The AIDS epidemic has rolled back a big rotting log and revealed all the squirming life underneath it, since it involves, all at once, the main themes of our existence: sex, death, power, money, love, hate, disease and panic. No American phenomenon has been so compelling since the Vietnam War. – Edmund White