"No one writing about art today comes closer than Siri Hustvedt to the elusive strangeness of a great painting." –Calvin Tomkins
"As an essayist she is perhaps without peer." –
The Scotland Herald "She brings both knowledge and an artist's insight to the discussion of memory, language, and personal identity. . . . It is Hustvedt's gift to write with exemplary clarity of what is by necessity unclear." –
Hilary Mantel "[Hustvedt] gives you the illusion of seeing as if for the first time works of art that you thought you knew well. After reading her . . . most prose about art seems merely perfunctory." –
Modern Painters "Hustvedt thinks her way through complex subject matter with the effortless clarity of a poised and skeptical outsider who has little time for nonsense or the blithe reductionist certainties of supposed experts. . . . Hustvedt is a calm traveler on the storm-tossed seas of the self. Her odyssey . . . deepens understanding." –
Lisa Appignanesi