Living, Thinking, Looking Quotes

“Reading is perception as translation. The inert signs of an alphabet become living meanings in the mind.”
― Siri Hustvedt, Living, Thinking, Looking: Essays

“Looking at a human being or even a picture of a human being is different from looking at an object. Newborn babies, only hours old, copy the expressions of adults. They pucker up, try to grin, look surprised, and stick out their tongues. The photographs of imitating infants are both funny and touching. They do not know they are doing it; this response is in them from the beginning. Later, people learn to suppress the imitation mechanism; it would not be good if we went on forever copying every facial expression we saw. Nevertheless, we human beings love to look at faces because we find ourselves there. When you smile at me, I feel a smile form on my own face before I am aware it is happening, and I smile because I am seeing me in your eyes and know that you like what you see.”
― Siri Hustvedt, Living, Thinking, Looking: Essays

“Very simply, for the mind, absence can be a catalyst for presence.”
― Siri Hustvedt, Living, Thinking, Looking: Essays

“Desire is the engine of life, the yearning that goads us forward with stops along the way, but it has no destination, no final stop, except death.”
― Siri Hustvedt, Living, Thinking, Looking: Essays

“We bring our life stories, our prejudices, our grudges, our expectations, and our limitations with us to books….Openness to a book is vital, and openness is simply a willingness to be changed by what we read. This is not as easy as it sounds. Many people read to solidify their own views.”
― Siri Hustvedt, Living, Thinking, Looking: Essays

“Art is not about art. Art is about life.   L. B.”
― Siri Hustvedt, Living, Thinking, Looking: Essays