Top 180 Audrey Niffenegger Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “My body wanted a baby. I felt empty and I wanted to be full. I wanted someone to love and who would stay: stay and be there, always. And I wanted Henry to be this child, so that when he was gone, he wouldn’t be entirely gone, there would be a bit of him with me... insurance, in case of fire, flood, act of God.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

152. “We come to a house and walk down the small walkway to its backyard. In the yard there are two screens and a slide projector. People are seated in lawn chairs, watching slides of trees.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

153. “We live in a state of holding breath, afraid to exhale for fear of breathing out the baby too soon.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

154. “I place my finger on her forehead and say, “vanish”, but it is she who will stay; I am the one who is vanishing.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

155. “So in order to cope, I pick locks, shoplift, pick pockets, mug people, panhandle, break and enter, steal cars, lie, fold, spindle, and mutilate. You name it, I’ve done it.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

156. “No. I lie awake worrying that you might disappear and never come back. I lie awake brooding about some of the stuff I sort of half know about in the future. But I have total faith in the idea that we are supposed to be together.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

157. “Clare swings a leg over me so she’s sitting exactly on top of my cock. It concentrates my attention wonderfully.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

158. “Huge black clouds are moving up from behind the trees, they come up so suddenly that I laugh, they are like puppets, and everything is swirling toward me and there is a long low peal of thunder.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

159. “For me? Oh, God. My idea of the perfect life would be if we just stayed in bed all the time. We could make love more or less continuously, and only get up to bring supplies, you know, fresh water and fruit to scurvy, and make occasional trips to the bathroom to shave before diving back to bed. And once in a while we could change the sheets. And go to the movies to prevent bedsores. And running. I would still have to run every morning.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

160. “Knowing the future is different from being told what I like.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

161. “The house envelops us, watches us, contemplates us as we make love in it for the first time, the first time of many times, and afterward, as we lie spent on the bare floor surrounded by boxes, I feel that we have found our home.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

162. “The husband and wife become intensely aware of the present moment. In the present they are free; free to make decisions, free to experiment. They learn to savor their lives because everything is uncertain, and at the same time some things are already too certain. They live and love in the present tense.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

163. “We are doing what we often do when we have a little privacy, when it’s cold out when both of us are past puberty and haven’t quite gotten around to actual girls yet. I think most people would do this, if they had the sort of opportunities I have. I mean i’m not gay or anything.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

164. “As always, I had the whole backseat to myself, so I lay down and watched the tall buildings along Lake Shore Drive flicking past the window.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

165. “It’s not good to know things ahead. It screws up your life.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

166. “That’s Henry. When he makes you moan and cry, don’t say nobody never told you.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

167. “It’s terrific, Clare,” Henry says, and we stare at each other and I think, “Don’t leave me.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

168. “The space that I can call mine, that isn’t full of Henry, is so small that my ideas have become small.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

169. “I try to remember being twenty. It’s just a blur of women, breasts, legs, skin, hair. All their stories have jumbled together, and their faces no longer attach themselves to names.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

170. “I’m going to fall apart... I cant – I don’t know what to feel.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

171. “Now every absence is a nonevent, a subtraction, an adventure I will hear about when my adventurer materializes at my feet, bleeding or whistling, smiling or shaking. Now I am afraid when he is gone.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

172. “Tchotchka. Amorta. Heart of my heart. Speak to me.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

173. “The music crashes in to a wall and stops.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

174. “That’s our Darwinian advantage,” he says. “We escape.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

175. “I am so tired. Even the word sleep is a lure, a seduction.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

176. “What’s the date?” “September 8, 1998. Where you from?” “Next July.” We sit down at the table. Kimy is doing the New York Times crossword puzzle. “What’s going on, next July?” “It’s been a very cool summer, your garden’s looking good. All the tech stocks are up. You should buy some Apple stock in January.” She makes a note on a piece of brown paper bag. “Okay. And you? How are you doing? How’s Clare? You guys got a baby yet?”

— Audrey Niffenegger

177. “Henry gaat op de schommel naast me zitten, met zijn gezicht de andere kant op, en we schommelen steeds hoger en hoger, we passeren elkaar, soms gaan we gelijk op en soms gaan we zo snel langs elkaar dat het net lijkt alsof we zullen botsen, en we lachen, en lachen, en niets kan ooit verdrietig zijn, niets kan ooit worden verloren, of dood zijn, of ver weg; nu zijn we hier, en niets kan onze volmaaktheid verstoren of dit volmaakte moment van zijn vreugde beroven.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

178. “I want. That’s all. I am wanting.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

179. “Everything hurt but she did not mind.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

180. “In the past, we can only do what we did, and we can only be there if we were there.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

181. “Here’s a good one: Loololuluah. It’s Arabic for pearl.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

182. “After an hour or so has passed I too am gone and there is only a blanket and a book, coffee cups, and clothing, to show that we were there at all.”

— Audrey Niffenegger

183. “I hear a muffled sniffling noise and glancing at Claire I am astonished to see that tears are streaming across her face toward her ears. I sit up and lean over her.”

— Audrey Niffenegger