Quotes From "Under The Sign Of Saturn: Essays" By Susan Sontag

1
The last achievement of the serious admirer is to stop immediately putting to work the energies aroused by, filling up the space opened by, what is admired. Thereby talented admirers give themselves permission to breathe, to breathe more deeply. But for that it is necessary to go beyond avidity; to identify with something beyond achievement, beyond the gathering of power. Susan Sontag
2
One cannot use the life to interpret the work. But One can use the work to interpret the life. Susan Sontag
3
Dissimulation, secretiveness, appear a necessity to the melancholic. He has complex, often veiled relations with others. These feelings of superiority, of inadequacy, of baffled feeling, of not being able to get what one wants, or even name it properly (or consistently) to oneself – these can be, it is felt they ought to be, masked by friendliness, or the most scrupulous manipulation. Susan Sontag
4
Time does not give one much leeway: it thrusts us forward from behind, blows us through the narrow tunnel of the present into the future. But space is broad, teeming with possibilities, positions, intersections, passages, detours, U-turns, dead-ends, one-way streets. Too many possibilities, indeed. Susan Sontag