In 1972, Susan Sontag wrote in her journal, "I want to make a New Year's prayer, not a resolution. I'm praying for courage." And intellectual courage is, indeed, one of the great legacies of the writer's career. Today, January 16, we celebrate Sontag's birthday by re-reading her journals, those intimate musings and half-musings. In 2012, her journals from 1964-1980 were published under the title As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh. The entries from this period, in which she wrote two of her most beloved and important contributions to American letters, On Photography and "Notes on Camp," offer an incredible glimpse into the author's inner life in her own words. Here are seven facts you may not know about Susan Sontag.

1. Sontag found Dickens' characters somewhat thin:
   "Dickens' characters are single motive puppets 'topped' with a humour—their character is their physiognomy (hence, relation to history of caricature)"
2. Failure in writing was less frightening than sexual failure to Sontag:
   "As a writer, I tolerate error, poor performance, failure. So what if I fail some of the time, if a story or an essay is no good? Sometimes things do go well, the work is good. And that's enough. It's just this attitude I don't have about sex. I don't tolerate error, failure—therefore I'm anxious from the start, and therefore I'm more likely to fail. Because I don't have the confidence that some of the time (without my forcing anything) it will be good."
3. As a child, Sontag saw Snow White and the Seven Dwarves when it was first released to theaters. Other films she saw when they first came out include, Citizen Kane, Fantasia, My Friend Flicka, Pride of the Yankees, and The Thief of Baghdad.
4. Sontag believed there was no such thing as "women's literature":
   "There may be a 'black literature' with its own standards, but there is no 'women's literature.' Isn't this precisely the old male chauvinist slander. (Cf. treatment of Virginia Woolf) Women do not have - and should not seek to create - a separate 'culture.' The separate culture they do have is privative. It's just that they should be seeking to abolish."
5. Sontag feared her mother:
   "I'm afraid of my mother—afraid of her harshness, her coldness (cold anger—the rattling coffee cup); ultimately, of course, afraid that she'll just collapse, fade out on me, never get out of bed. Any parent, any affection (though I've assented to a fraudulent contract to get it) is better than none."
6. Adolescent schooling was one institution Sontag speculated might be abolished:
   "Why not eliminate schooling between age 12-16? It's biologically + psychologically too turbulent a time to be cooped up inside, made to sit all the time. During these years, kids would live communally—doing some work, anyway being physically active, in the countryside, learning about sex—free of their parents. Those four 'missing' years of school could be added on, at a much later age. At, say, 50-54 everyone would have to go back to school."
7. Susan Sontag enjoyed watching ice skating. In 1977, she wrote some lists of things she liked. Others, to name a few, were: Venice, goose down quilts, sushi, large long-haired dogs, ivory sweaters, leather belts, aphorisms, reading aloud, and escalators.