Home > Work > Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963
21 " The only interesting ideas are heresies. "
― Susan Sontag , Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963
22 " She felt herself needing more and more sleep. When she awoke in the morning, she thought of when she might lie down again - and when she would sleep. She started going to the movies. "
23 " Marriage is a sort of tacit hunting in couples. The world all in couples, each couple in its own little house, watching its own little interests and stewing in its own little privacy - it's the most repulsive thing in the world. One's got to get rid of the exclusiveness of married love. "
24 " Gide and I have attained such perfect intellectual communion that I experience the appropriate labor pains for every thought he gives birth to! "
25 " My desire to write is connected with my homosexuality. I need the identity as a weapon, to match the weapon that society has against me. It doesn’t justify my homosexuality. But it would give me — I feel — a license. "
26 " In NY sensuality completely turns into sexuality - no objects for the senses to respond to, no beautiful river, houses, people. Awful smells of the street, and dirt... Nothing except eating, if that, and the frenzy of the bed. "
27 " On Keeping a Journal. Superficial to understand the journal as just a receptacle for one’s private, secret thoughts—like a confidante who is deaf, dumb, and illiterate. In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could do to any person; I create myself. The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual, daily life but rather—in many cases—offers an alternative to it. "
28 " There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys: they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked out the sum for themselves. "
29 " I don't intend to let my intellect dominate me, and the last thing I want to do is worship knowledge or people who have knowledge! I don't give a damn for anyone's aggregation of facts, except that it be a reflection [of] basic sensitivity which I do demand... I intend to do everything... to have one way of evaluating experience—does it cause me pleasure or pain and I shall be very cautious about rejecting the painful—I shall anticipate pleasure everything and find it, too, for it is everywhere! I shall involve myself wholly... everything matters! The only thing I resign is the power to resign, to retreat: the acceptance of sameness and the intellect. I am alive... I am beautiful... what else is there? "
30 " I am not myself with people [...] but am I myself when alone? That seems unlikely, too. "
31 " Image of an image of an image... But to record all the dips and upswings, in a sense falsifies them, and I start deluding myself and thinking all this is, or might be, real. Enough to play the game, or try to play it. A mistake to tally up the score. "
32 " شخصان مُكبّلان إلى بعض قرب كومة روث، يجب ألا يتشاجرا، فهما سيجعلان كومة الروث، تزداد علواً فقط بضعة إنشات، سيكون عليهما العيش مع رائحة نتانتهما تحت أنفيهما "
33 " My emotional life: dialectic between craving for privacy and need to submerge myself in a passionate relationship to another. With him I have neither, neither privacy or passion. Neither the heightening of self which is won by privacy and loneliness, nor the splendid heroic beautiful loss of self that accompanies passion. "
34 " My love wants to incorporate her totally, to eat her. My love is selfish. "
35 " I know I’m not myself with people, but am I myself when alone? That seems unlikely, too. "
36 " The most precious thing is vitality – not in any sinister Lawrentian sense, but just the will + energy + appetite to do what one wants to do + not to be ‘sunk’ by disappointments. Aristotle is right: happiness is not to be aimed at; it is a by-product of activity aimed at. "
37 " I remember expressing amazement (+ feeling superior) when Harriet said once in Paris that she didn`t know whether or not she had been in love with someone. I couldn`t understand what she was talking about. I said that had never happened to me. Of course not. Since for me being in love is deciding: I`m in love + sticking to it, I`m always well informed.-Reborn "
38 " In a time hollowed out by decorum, one must school oneself in spontaneity. "
39 " 25/12/48É muito provável que ao lembrar-me disso, um dia, eu ache muita graça. Assim como houve um tempo em que eu era religiosa de um modo neurótico e aterrorizado e achava que um dia seria católica, agora acho que tenho tendências lésbicas (com que relutância escrevo isto) – "
40 " I know I’m not myself with people, […] But am I myself when alone? That seems unlikely, too. "