Quotes by Siri Hustvedt

About Siri Hustvedt:

Siri Hustvedt is an American novelist and essayist. Hustvedt is the author of a book of poetry, six novels, two books of essays, and several works of non-fiction. Her books include: The Blindfold (1992), The Enchantment of Lily Dahl (1996), What I Loved (2003), for which she is best known, A Plea for Eros (2006), The Sorrows of an American (2008), The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves (2010), The Summer Without Men (2011), Living, Thinking, Looking (2012), and The Blazing World (2014). What I Loved and The Summer Without Men were international bestsellers. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I garden. It's very relaxing to me.

Siri Hustvedt

I am an American, but a sense of otherness was part of my growing up. I spoke Norwegian before I spoke English. My mother is Norwegian.

Siri Hustvedt

The brain-mind is not a computer, and regarding it as one has led to a variety of theoretical dead ends.

Siri Hustvedt

The brain is an immensely complex organ, and many mysteries remain. Exactly how brain and mind or soma and psyche are related is one of them.

Siri Hustvedt

None of us is immune to suggestion. We are social beings and live in a social world.

Siri Hustvedt

People who grow up with two or more languages understand that each can express certain aspects of reality better than the other.

Siri Hustvedt

Rage has such focus. It can't go on forever, but it's invigorating.

Siri Hustvedt

My parents were gigantic influences on me. I had a deep hunger to impress my father, who was a professor and an intellectual. I wanted his approval.

Siri Hustvedt

When I don't get enough sleep, I am cranky, vulnerable to headaches, and my concentration is poor.

Siri Hustvedt

We all live in a culture that is continually isolating feminine and masculine aspects, even when they're not related to people.

Siri Hustvedt

The mind-brain is lived only from a first-person perspective, and it is a dynamic, plastic organ that changes in relation to the environment.

Siri Hustvedt

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

Siri Hustvedt

Both depression and anxiety disorders, for example, are repeatedly described in the media as 'chemical imbalances in the brain,' as if spontaneous neural events with no relation to anything outside a person's brain cause depression and anxiety.

Siri Hustvedt

Flashbacks rarely involve language. Mine certainly didn't. They were visual, motor, and sensory, and they took place in a relentless, horrifying present.

Siri Hustvedt

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

I bought myself a rubber brain, familiarized myself with its many parts, listened intently, and read more. In fact, I read obsessively, as my husband has told me repeatedly. He has even suggested that my rapacious reading resembles an addiction.

Siri Hustvedt

I have not been diagnosed with epilepsy. I did have an MRI of the brain, and they found no abnormalities in my brain. Now, there are people with epilepsy who have completely normal MRI's, too. I just think also, you know, epileptic seizures can be tr...

Siri Hustvedt

I like 'nerves'! I like the word 'migraineur'. I like the word 'madness'. These are OK words. The 19th century had a very handy term: 'neurasthenic'. I think that's a very useful word. We all know what that means: it means extra-sensitive.

Siri Hustvedt

I've come to understand that migraine is a part of the personality. I have migraine troughs. These often follow high productivity. I have a hypo-manic phase, then I'll crash.

Siri Hustvedt

I watched 'Holiday' in college, and that was when I had my first fantasy of being Katharine Hepburn, standing at the top of the staircase in a huge Hollywood mansion.

Siri Hustvedt

Many scholars working in the humanities have already shown interest in brain research. For years, contemporary theory in the humanities has left the body and biology out of their discussions.

Siri Hustvedt

Author Bio

  • NameSiri Hustvedt
  • Descriptionnovelist, essayist, poet
  • BornFebruary 19, 1955
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPoet; Author; Novelist