The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “Susan Sontag”

The Aesthetic of Silence: Susan Sontag on Art as a Form of Spirituality and the Paradoxical Role of Silence in Creative Culture
The Aesthetic of Silence: Susan Sontag on Art as a Form of Spirituality and the Paradoxical Role of Silence in Creative Culture

“The art of our time is noisy with appeals for silence. A coquettish, even cheerful nihilism. One recognizes the imperative of silence, but goes on speaking anyway.”

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In Defense of Boredom: 200 Years of Ideas on the Virtues of Not-Doing from Some of Humanity’s Greatest Minds
In Defense of Boredom: 200 Years of Ideas on the Virtues of Not-Doing from Some of Humanity’s Greatest Minds

Bertrand Russell, Søren Kierkegaard, Andrei Tarkovsky, Susan Sontag, Adam Phillips, Renata Adler, and more.

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Paul Goodman on the Nine Kinds of Silence
Paul Goodman on the Nine Kinds of Silence

“There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy… the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul… the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos.”

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Susan Sontag on the Perils of Publicity in Creative Work
Susan Sontag on the Perils of Publicity in Creative Work

“Publicity in general is a very destructive thing, for any artist.”

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How Susan Sontag Possessed New York and Subverted Sexual Stereotypes
How Susan Sontag Possessed New York and Subverted Sexual Stereotypes

“Sontag seemed to exude an irresistible mixture of intelligence, hipness, sex, and beauty.”

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Susan Sontag on Storytelling, What It Means to Be a Good Human Being, and Her Advice to Writers
Susan Sontag on Storytelling, What It Means to Be a Good Human Being, and Her Advice to Writers

“Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world.”

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Susan Sontag on the Trouble with Treating Art and Cultural Material as “Content”
Susan Sontag on the Trouble with Treating Art and Cultural Material as “Content”

“Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art… Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all.”

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Rereading as Rebirth: Young Susan Sontag on Personal Growth, the Pleasures of Revisiting Beloved Books, and Her Rereading List
Rereading as Rebirth: Young Susan Sontag on Personal Growth, the Pleasures of Revisiting Beloved Books, and Her Rereading List

“Stop! I cannot think this fast! Or rather I cannot grow this fast!”

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Celebrated Writers on the Creative Benefits of Keeping a Diary
Celebrated Writers on the Creative Benefits of Keeping a Diary

Reflections on the value of recording our inner lives from Woolf, Thoreau, Sontag, Emerson, Nin, Plath, and more.

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Debriefing: Susan Sontag Reads from <em>I, Etcetera</em>
Debriefing: Susan Sontag Reads from I, Etcetera

“With more people, there are more voices to tune out.”

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