Victims suggest innocence. And innocence, by the inexorable logic that governs all relational terms, suggests guilt. – Susan Sontag
I was not looking for my dreams to interpret my life, but rather for my life to interpret my dreams. – Susan Sontag
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
Any critic is entitled to wrong judgments, of course. But certain lapses of judgment indicate the radical failure of an entire sensibility. – Susan Sontag
When a mans life is destroyed or damaged by some wound or privation of soul or body, which is due to other mens actions or negligence, it is not only his sensibility that suffers but also his aspiration toward the good. Therefore there has been sacrilege towards that which is sacred in him. – Simone Weil
The troubles of the young are soon over; they leave no external mark. If you wound the tree in its youth the bark will quickly cover the gash; but when the tree is very old, peeling the bark off, and looking carefully, you will see the scar there still. All that is buried is not dead. – Olive Schreiner
Each of us has a very rich nature and can look at things objectively, from a distance, and at the same time can have something more personal to say about them. I am trying to look at the world, and at myself, from many different points of view. I think many poets have this duality. – Wislawa Szymborska