Home > Work > Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963
41 " Pleasure of tragedy is vicarious suicide "
― Susan Sontag , Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963
42 " My repressed feelings leak out —slowly – in the form of resentment – a continual leakage of resentment. "
43 " What is the secret of suddenly beginning to write, finding a voice? Try whiskey. Also being warm. "
44 " it’s so effortless to let my loneliness defeat me, make me mold myself to whatever would (in some way—but not wholly) relieve it. I am infinite—I must never forget it … I want sensuality and sensitivity, both … I was more alive and satisfied with H than I have ever been with anyone else … Let me never deny that … I want to err on the side of violence and excess, rather than to underfill my moments … "
45 " 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. "
46 " 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. "
47 " Remember! X looks abject-lovingly at Y; Y is irritated by mounting self-reproaches, which are resented as being undeserved; Y feels compelled to be brutal to X. Sadism, hostility an essential element in love. Therefore it's important that love be a transaction of hostilities. Lesson: not to surrender one's heart where it's not wanted. "