The recollections of an older man are different from those of a younger man. What seemed vital at forty may lose its significance at seventy. We manufacture stories, after all, from the fleeting sensory material that bombards us at every instant, a fragmented series of pictures, conversations, odors, and the touch of things and people. We delete most of it to live with some semblance of order, and the reshuffling of memory goes on until we die.
Siri HustvedtThere's a phenomenology of being sick, one that depends on temperament, personal history, and the culture which we live in.
Siri HustvedtAfter years of having immersed myself in science, I do think that if you master several different ways of thinking, it makes your own thought processes more agile.
Siri HustvedtWomen really are not supposed to be imaginative. That creativity of this kind is supposed to belong to men. You know, because women make babies. I find the double standards shocking.
Siri HustvedtThere is no reason we should expect young children to enter the nocturnal darkness of sleep and dreams without help.
Siri Hustvedt