Paria Pouyan’s Reviews > Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963 > Status Update

“I was once terrifiedly and neurotically religious and thought I should one day become a Catholic, now I feel that I have lesbian tendencies (how reluctantly I write this)—“

Oh Sontag. 💙💙💙💙

“What, I ask, drives me to disorder? How can I diagnose myself? All I feel, most immediately, is the most anguished need for physical love and mental companionship—I am very young, and perhaps the disturbing aspect of my sexual ambitions will be outgrown—frankly, I don’t care. My need is so overwhelming and time, in my obsession, so short—“

“… Poetry must be: exact, intense, concrete, significant, rhythmical, formal, complex
 
… Art, then, is thus always striving to be independent of the mere intelligence …
 
… Language is not only an instrument but an end in itself …”

“It is useless for me to record only the satisfying parts of my existence—(There are too few of them anyway!) Let me note all the sickening waste of today, that I shall not be easy with myself and compromise my tomorrows.”

“How can I help me, make me cruel?”

“How easy it would be to convince myself of the plausibility of my parents’ life! If I saw only them and their friends for a year, would resign myself—surrender? Does my “intelligence” need frequent rejuvenation at the springs of other’s dissatisfaction and die without it?”