“Literature is dialogue; responsiveness.”

—  Susan Sontag

Frankfurt Book Fair speech (2003)
Context: Literature is dialogue; responsiveness. Literature might be described as the history of human responsiveness to what is alive and what is moribund as cultures evolve and interact with one another.
Writers can do something to combat these clichés of our separateness, our difference — for writers are makers, not just transmitters, of myths. Literature offers not only myths but counter-myths, just as life offers counter-experiences — experiences that confound what you thought you thought, or felt, or believed.

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Susan Sontag 168
American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist 1933–2004

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