1
But that's why you're upset now. Fiction is not life.'' You don't believe that.'' I think I do.'' You know as well as I do that the line can't be drawn, that we're infected at every moment by fictions of all kinds, that it's inescapable.'' Don't be a sophist, ' he said. 'There is a world and it's palpable.'' I don't mean that, ' I said. 'I mean that it's hard really to see it, that it's all hazy with out dreams and fantasies. .Siri Hustvedt
2
I imagined Stephen's companion was a beautiful woman. Her form and coloring changed with my moving thoughts, but the idea that she existed remained to nag at me, and even though she was only a spook of my jealousy, I couldn't stop the surge of fantasies about her and Stephen. By the time I left the library, I had invented several elaborate plots involving the two of them.Siri Hustvedt
3
Do you know that I can't remember her face? Try as I may, it will not be conjured. I can tell you what she looked like; I can recite a description of her features, part by part, but I cannot evoke the whole face.'' Don't you have a photograph?'' Photographs! ' He spat out the word. 'I'm talking about true recollection - seeing the face.Siri Hustvedt
4
In this early memory he looks different from the way I would remember him later.Siri Hustvedt
5
Distortion is part of desire. We always change the things we want.Siri Hustvedt
6
I know, but he must have felt it that way, that evil was an emptiness, a lack of something, not a presence.' He turned his head fast and looked at me. 'That's what desire is, isn't it? The lack of something.Siri Hustvedt
7
I remember thinking how easy it is to speak in clichés, to steal a line from pulp fiction and let it fall. We can only hover around the inexpressible with our words anyway, and there is comfort in saying what we have heard before.Siri Hustvedt
8
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
9
But all attractions are alike, ' he said. 'They come from an emptiness inside.' He hammered on this chest with his index finger. 'Something's missing and you have to fill it. Books, paintings, people, they're all the same..'' A lot of people do without books and paintings.'' True, ' he said, 'but that doesn't affect the argument.' Paris turned his head to one side and chewed on his lip. 'Of course, nothing ever does the trick. Nobody's really satisfied for long.Siri Hustvedt