Debriefing Quotes

“No one extraordinary appears to be entirely contemporary. People who are contemporary don’t appear at all: they are invisible.”
― Susan Sontag, Debriefing: Collected Stories

“It’s a pleasure to share one’s memories. Everything remembered is dear, endearing, touching, precious. At least the past is safe—though we didn’t know it at the time. We know it now. Because it’s in the past; because we have survived.”
― Susan Sontag, Debriefing: Collected Stories

“Hypothesis: Individuals who seem truly remarkable give the impression of belonging to another epoch. (Either some epoch in the past or, simply, the future.) No one extraordinary appears to be entirely contemporary. People who are contemporary don’t appear at all: they are invisible.”
― Susan Sontag, Debriefing: Collected Stories

“No one is a devil if fully heard.”
― Susan Sontag, Debriefing: Collected Stories

“From Le Potomak by Cocteau (1919 edition, p. 66): “Il était, dans la ville de Tien-Sin, un papillon.”
― Susan Sontag, Debriefing: Collected Stories

“To America—I salute you, especially those parts of you which are not beautiful: your new banks; your candy bars; your parking lots. I have tried always to see the best in you and your people who while friendly and full of fun on the outside are often rather mean on the inside. But no matter. My life has been spent in the discovery of you—that is, of myself. I am what I am because I am a citizen of this country and a votary of its way of life. Therefore, let my body be cremated and my remains scattered among the cigarette ashes next to the potatoes which lie uneaten (because you are dieting) on your dinner plates.”
― Susan Sontag, Debriefing: Collected Stories

“I received a letter from a close friend. I did not open it for a week. It lay smoldering on my night table. The envelope bearing the name of a mere acquaintance I tore open eagerly as I came up the stairs, confident that the letter inside would contain nothing that could disturb me or hurt me.”
― Susan Sontag, Debriefing: Collected Stories