Audrey Niffenegger

“Chaos is more freedom; in fact, total freedom. But no meaning.”

“After my mom died she ate my father up completely. She would have hated it. Every minute of his life since then has been marked by her absence, every action has lacked dimension because she is not there to measure against. And when I was young I didn't understand, but now, I know, how absence can be present, like a damaged nerve, like a dark bird. If I had to live on without you I know I could not do it. But I hope, I have this vision of you walking unencumbered, with your shining hair in the sun. I have not seen this with my eyes, but only with my imagination, that makes pictures, that always wanted to paint you, shining; but I hope that this vision will be true, anyway.”

“Chaos is more freedom; in fact, total freedom. But no meaning. I want to be free to act, and I also want my actions to mean something.”

“Now I wonder if it means that the future is a place, or like a place, that I could go to; that is go to in some way other”

“My family isn’t posh; they’re musicians.”

“Running is many things to me: survival, calmness, euphoria, solitude. It is proof of my corporeal existence, my ability to control my movement through space if not time, and the obedience, however temporary, of my body to my will.”

“It's hard being left behind. (...) It's hard to be the one who stays.”

““But don’t you think,” I persist, “that it’s better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?””

“That’s what I love you for: your inability to perceive all my hideous flaws.”

“Clare takes a mouthful, swallows it in a businesslike fashion, and says, “Well, that’s not so bad.”“Oh. Well, that was marvelous.””

“But as usual there’s no answer to this. As usual, that’s just how it is.”

“It’s dark now and I am very tired. I love you, always. Time is nothing.”

“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.”

“You can still be cool when you’re dead. In fact, it’s much easier, because you aren’t getting old and fat and losing your hair.”

“There are several ways to react to being lost. One is to panic: this was usually Valentina's first impulse. Another is to abandon yourself to lostness, to allow the fact that you've misplaced yourself to change the way you experience the world.”

“To world enough and time.”