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Audrey Niffenegger

Audrey Niffenegger Quotes

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Famous Audrey Niffenegger Quotes

“I’m curious about things that people aren’t supposed to see—so, for example, I liked going to the British Museum, but I would like it better if I could go into all the offices and storage rooms, I want to look in all the drawers and—discover stuff. And I want to know about people. I mean, I know it’s probably kind of rude but I want to know why you have all these boxes and what’s in them and why all your windows are papered over and how long it’s been that way and how do you feel when you wash things and why don’t you do something about it?”

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Book:Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel
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“I sleep all day. Noises flit around the house- garbage truck in the alley, rain, tree rapping against the bedroom window. I sleep. I inhabit sleep firmly, willing it, wielding it, pushing away dreams, refusing, refusing. Sleep is my lover now, my forgetting, my opiate, my oblivion. [...] It is afternoon, it is night, it is morning. Everything is reduced to this bed, this endless slumber that makes the days into one day, makes time stop, stretches and compacts time until it is meaningless.”

DreamNightHouseSleepForgetMorningTreeWillingLoversOne DayBedRainWindowRapEndlessNoisePushingMeaninglessAfternoonBedroomOblivionTruckGarbageAlleysSlumberMaking TimeOpiatesMy LoverPushing AwayGarbage Trucks
Book:The Time Traveler's Wife
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“We didn't think the library was funny looking in it's faux- Greek splendor, nor did we find the cuisine limited or bland, or the movies at the Michigan theater relentlessly American and mindless. These were opinions I came to later, after I became a denizen of a City, an expatriate anxious to distance herself from the bumpkin ways of her youth. I am suddenly consumed 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.”

ThinkingWayLittlesHomeSchoolGirlReadingSecretCitiesOpinionFieldsYouthSickTheaterDistanceWinterLibraryNostalgiaGreekAnxiousConsumedSplendorMichiganMindlessCuisineNancyBlandFauxWinter DaysExpatriatesNancy DrewCough DropsHome Sick
Author:Audrey Niffenegger
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“Have you ever found your heart's desire and then lost it? I had seen myself, a portrait of myself as a reader. My childhood: days home sick from school reading Nancy Drew, forbidden books read secretively late at night. Teenage years reading -trying to read- books I'd heard were important, Naked Lunch, and The Fountainhead, Ulysses and Women in Love... It was as though I had dreamt the perfect lover, who vanished as I woke, leaving me pining and surly.”

TryingYearsHeartImportantBookHomeSchoolDesireNightReadingFoundLostPerfectHeardChildhoodReaderLoversLateSickLeavingNakedLunchPortraitsTeenageForbiddenLeaving MeNancyFountainheadTeenage YearsUlyssesPiningSurlyNancy DrewPerfect LoverHome Sick
Author:Audrey Niffenegger
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“Even her name seemed empty, as though it had detached itself from her and was floating untethered in his mind. How am I supposed to live without you? It was not a matter of the body; his body would carry on as usual. The problem was located in the word how: he would live, but without Elspeth the flavour, the manner, the method of living were lost to him. He would have to relearn solitude.”

MindMatterProblemBodyNamesLostSolitudeEmptyMethodUsualFloatingWithout YouDetachedFlavour
Book:Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel
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“Martin said, "It feels as though part of my self has detached and gone to Amsterdam, where it—she—is waiting for me. Do you know about phantom-limb syndrome?" Julia nodded. "There's pain where she ought to be. It's feeding the other pain, the thing that makes me wash and count and all that. So her absence is stopping me from going to find her. Do you see?”

KnowsFeelsSaidSelfPainWaitingGoneOughtAbsenceDo You KnowStoppingFeedingLimbsPhantomsDetachedSyndromesJuliaAmsterdamPhantom Limbs
Author:Audrey Niffenegger
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“Oh. A bigger studio. It dawns on me, stupid me, that Henry could win the lottery at any time at all; that he has never bothered to do so because it's not normal; that he has decided to set aside his fanatical dedication to living like a normal person so I can have a studio big enough to roller-skate across; that I am being an ingrate. "Clare? Earth to Clare..." "Thank you," I say, too abruptly.”

PersonsI CanEnoughBigsEarthWinningStupidNormalDecidedBiggerStudiosDawnDedicationBotheredLotterySkatesIngrates
Author:Audrey Niffenegger
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“The choices we’re working with here are a block universe, where past, present and future all coexist simultaneously and everything has already happened; chaos, where anything can happen and nothing can be predicted because we can’t know all the variables; and a Christian universe in which God made everything and it’s all here for a purpose but we have free will anyway.”

KnowsMadeHappensChristianPastPurposeChoicesUniverseHappenedChaosBlockFree WillVariablesPast PresentPast Present And FutureCoexistAnything Can Happen
Author:Audrey Niffenegger
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“The kissed surprised him because it had been so long since he'd kissed anyone but Elspeth. It surprised Valentina because she had hardly ever kissed anyone that way - to her, kissing had always been more theoretical than physical. Afterwards she stood with her eyes closed, lips parted, face tilted. Robert thought, She's going to break my heart and I'm going to let her.”

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Author:Audrey Niffenegger
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