“I am suddenly comsumed by nostalgia for the little girl who was me, who loved the fields and believed in God, who spent winter days home sick from school reading Nancy Drew and sucking menthol cough drops, who could keep a secret.”
Audrey Niffenegger“The Garden Under Snow "Now the garden is under snow a blank page our footprints write onclare who was never minebut always belonged to herselfSleeping Beautya crystalline blanketthis is her springthis is her sleeping/awakeningshe is waitingeverything is waitingthe improbable shapes of rootsmy babyher facea garden, waiting.”
Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife“[Who are the artists you admire, Surrealist or otherwise?]Remedios Varo, Max Ernst, Charlotte Salomon, Goya, Aubrey Beardsley. Beardsley is not so much about the impossible as he is about freaks and deformities, but those are interesting to me too.”
Audrey Niffenegger“It's terrific, Clare," Henry says, and we stare at each other, and I think, "Don't leave me.”
Audrey Niffenegger“Clare, I want to tell you, again, I love you. Our love has been the thread through the labyrinth, the net under the high-wire walker, the only real thing in this strange life of mine that I could ever trust. Tonight I feel that my love for you has more density in this world than I do, myself: as though it could linger on after me and surround you, keep you, hold you.”
Audrey Niffenegger“Why do you have a cigarette lighter in your glove compartment?" her husband, Jack, asked her. "I'm bored with knitting. I've taken up arson”
Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry“He was not in the house. He did not come back that night. Days went by, and at last she understood that he would not return at all.”
Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry“He would say her name over and over until it devolved into meaningless sounds - mah REI kuh, mah REI kuh - it became an entry in a dictionary of loneliness.”
Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry“Each spine was an encapsulated memory, each book represented hours, days of pleasure, of immersion into words.”
Audrey Niffenegger, The Night Bookmobile“You're my phantom limb, Mouse. I keep looking for you. I forget. I feel stupid, Mouse. Haunt me, find me, come back from wherever you are. Be with me.”
Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry“That is what madness is, isn't it? All the wheels fly off the bus and things don't make sense any more. Or rather, they do, but it's not a kind of sense anyone else can understand.”
Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry