Feminism was good for me, as were any number of causes, but as I developed as a thinking person, the truisms and dogmas of every ideology became as worn as that book's cover.

— Siri Hustvedt

Fiction is necessary to life - not only as books but as dreams, dreams that frame the world and give it meaning.

— Siri Hustvedt

Henry Miller is a famous writer whose work has fallen out of fashion, but I strongly recommend that readers who don't know his work pick up a book and experience this writer's zealous, crazy, inventive, funny, sexy, often delirious prose.

— Siri Hustvedt

I am always suspicious of those who impose 'rules' on child-rearing. Every child is different in terms of temperament and learning, and every parent responds to a particular child, not some generalized infant or youngster.

— Siri Hustvedt

I am fascinated that no one I have read seems to have noticed that the literature on Picasso continually turns grown-up women into girls.

— Siri Hustvedt

I don't want the words to be naked the way they are in faxes or in the computer. I want them to be covered by an envelope that you have to rip open in order to get at. Furthermore, I want there to be a waiting time -a pause between the writing and the reading. Furthermore, I want us to be careful about what we say to each other. Furthermore, I want the miles between us to be real and long. This will be our law -that we write our dailiness and our suffering very, very carefully.

— Siri Hustvedt

If not violently overthrown, expectation can have a power in itself, can invest a place with what literally isn't there.

— Siri Hustvedt

If something's not working, it's wonderful to have a reader you can trust to say, 'Actually, you've gone off the deep end here'.

— Siri Hustvedt

I had never seen anything like New York, and its newness held the promise of my future: dense with the experience I craved - romantic, urbane, intellectual. Looking back on that moment, I believe I was saved from disappointment by the nature of my "great expectations." I honestly wasn't burdened with conventional notions of finding security and happiness. At that time of my life, even when I was "happy," it wasn't because I expected it. That was for characters less romantic than myself. I didn't expect to be rich, well-fed, and kindly treated by all. I wanted to live deeply and fully, to embrace whatever the city held for me.

— Siri Hustvedt

I had no friends. Was I happy? I was wildly happy. Sitting on my bed, which took up most of the space in that narrow room, I whispered prayers of thanks that I was really and truly here in New York, beginning another life. I worshiped the place. I feasted on every beautiful inch of it - the crowds, the fruit and vegetable stands, the miles of pavement, the graffiti, even the garbage. All of it sent me into paroxysms of joy. Needless to say, my elevation had an irrational cast to it. Had I not arrived laden with ideas of urban paradise, I might have felt bad losing sleep, might have felt lonely and disoriented, but instead I walked around town like a love-struck idiot, inhaling the difference between there and here.

— Siri Hustvedt