Sontag drew fire for writing that "Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Balanchine ballets, et al. don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history." (Partisan Review, Winter 1967, p. 57.) Sontag refused to apologize for the remark. She later issued a partial apology for her statement, saying it was insensitive to cancer victims.

Maybe this world is another planet's Hell.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Life cannot wait until the sciences explained the universe. We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its coerciveness; it is always urgent, 'here and now' without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point blank.

"Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can't reduce me to a set of influences. You've given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You' ve got everybody in moral dignity pants - nothing is ever anybody's fault. Look at me, Officer Starling. Can you stand to say I'm evil? Am I evil, Officer Starling?"

I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited.

But to risk we must,
Because the greatest hazard in life
Is to risk nothing
The man, the woman, who risks nothing,
Does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.