Siri Hustvedt quotes

Siri Hustvedt is an American novelist, essayist, and poet known for her explorations of identity, neuroscience, and the arts. Her works often blend fiction with philosophy and science, challenging traditional genre boundaries. She is widely acclaimed for her intellectual depth and distinctive narrative voice. Here are 19 of her quotes:

Bedtime rituals for children ease the way to the elsewhere of slumber - teeth brushing and pajamas, the voice of a parent reading, the feel and smell of the old blanket or toy, the nightlight glowing in a corner. (Siri Hustvedt)

It is tempting to think of this form of insomnia, the inability to fall asleep, as a disease of agency and control: the inability to relinquish high self-reflexive consciousness for the vulnerable, ignorant regions of slumber in which we know not what we do.

Siri Hustvedt

Sleep resistance, bouts of insomnia, nightmares, night terrors, crawling into bed with parents in the middle of the night - all these are so common among children, it seems fair to call them 'normal.'

Siri Hustvedt

Having children is one of the most passionate and involving bits of business in human life.

Siri Hustvedt

In August of 2002, I survived a car accident. Although I can still see the van speeding toward us, I cannot bring to mind the crash itself - only its aftermath.

Siri Hustvedt

Pain is always emotional. Fear and depression keep constant company with chronic hurting.

Siri Hustvedt

Every sickness has an alien quality, a feeling of invasion and loss of control that is evident in the language we use about it.

Siri Hustvedt

There is no future without a past, because what is to be cannot be imagined except as a form of repetition.

Siri Hustvedt

I will turn human anatomy into roses and stars and sea. I will dissect the beloveds body in metaphor.

Siri Hustvedt

That night as I lay in bed, I thought of several things I could have said and mourned the fact that my wit usually bloomed late, peaking when it no longer mattered, during the solitary hours close to midnight.

Siri Hustvedt

Reading is a private pursuit; one that takes place behind closed doors. (Siri Hustvedt)

Dreams are stories made by and for the dreamer, and each dreamer has his own folds to open and knots to untie.

Siri Hustvedt

A book is a collaboration between the one who reads and what is read and, at its best, that coming together is a love story like any other.

Siri Hustvedt

There is this assumption that much of what I write is about my life, and that simply is not true.

Siri Hustvedt

We sometimes imagine we want what we don't really want.

Siri Hustvedt

All human states are organic brain states - happiness, sadness, fear, lust, dreaming, doing math problems and writing novels - and our brains are not static.

Siri Hustvedt

There is no reason we should expect young children to enter the nocturnal darkness of sleep and dreams without help.

Siri Hustvedt

Being a mother is complicated because its not just a paternal culture making demands on you; its those internal demands and expectations that women have and are self-generated.

Siri Hustvedt

Intellectual curiosity about one's own illness is certainly born of a desire for mastery. If I couldn't cure myself, perhaps I could at least begin to understand myself.

Siri Hustvedt

Siri Hustvedt

Siri Hustvedt - Image

Photo: Hreinn Gudlaugsson, CC BY-SA 4.0

Occupation: American Novelist
Born: February 19, 1955
Quotes count: 19

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