110+ Audrey Niffenegger Quotes On Friendship, Creative And Intricate

Audrey Niffenegger is an American writer, artist, and academic. She is best known for her 2003 novel The Time Traveler's Wife, which was adapted into a 2009 film of the same name. Niffenegger is also the author of Her Fearful Symmetry, The Night Bookmobile, and Raven Girl, among other works. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Audrey Niffenegger on love, life, friendship.

Top 10 Audrey Niffenegger Quotes

1. Don't you think 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?
2. It's hard being left behind. (...) It's hard to be the one who stays.
3. Sleep is my lover now, my forgetting, my opiate, my oblivion.
4. I won't ever leave you, even though you're always leaving me.
5. Love the world and yourself in it, move through it as though it offers no resistance, as though the world is your natural element.
6. I wanted someone to love who would stay: stay and be there, always.
7. It’s dark now and I am very tired. I love you, always. Time is nothing.
8. we both smile and we are conspirators.
9. I'm bored with knitting. I've taken up arson.
10. Sometimes a thing is—too much—and it has to be isolated and put away." Martin shrugged. "So what's in the boxes is—emotion. In the form of objects."-Her Fearful Symmetry

Audrey Niffenegger Short Quotes

• I have a sort of Christmas-morning sense of the library as a big box full of beautiful books.
• I never understood why Clark Kent was so hell bent on keeping Lois Lane in the dark.
• Listen, sometimes when you finally find out, you realize that you were much better off not knowing.
• I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.
• But you make me happy. It's living up to being happy that's the difficult part.
• I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going. - Henry deTamble
• Chaos is more freedom; in fact, total freedom. But no meaning.
• Sometimes I'm happy when he's gone, but I'm always happy when he returns. -Clare
• CLARE: The library is cool and smells like carpet cleaner, although all I can see is marble.
• Clare seems so pleased with the idea of me as a pirate that she forgets that I am Stranger Danger.

Audrey Niffenegger Quotes About Love

I'm at a loss because I am in love with a man who is standing before me with no memories of me at all. (Time Traveler's Wife) — Audrey Niffenegger

I'm living under water. Everything seems slow and far away. I know there's a world up there, a sunlit quick world where time runs like dry sand through an hourglass, but down here, where I am, air and sound and time and feeling are thick and dense. — Audrey Niffenegger

Why is love intensified by absence? — Audrey Niffenegger

I look at him, look at the book, remember, this book, this moment, the first book I ever loved — Audrey Niffenegger

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. — Audrey Niffenegger

that's what I love you for: your inability to perceive all my hideous flaws — Audrey Niffenegger

Love you..." Henry-" Always..." Oh God oh God-" World enough..." No!" And time..." Henry! — Audrey Niffenegger

Henry loves my hair almost as though it is a creature unto itself, as though it has a soul to call its own, as though it could love him back. — Audrey Niffenegger

There is only one page left to write on. I will fill it with words of only one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love. — Audrey Niffenegger

I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I'm tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that's been under the snow all winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by abscence? — Audrey Niffenegger

Audrey Niffenegger Quotes About Life

‎I never wanted to have anything in my life that I couldn't stand losing. But it's too late for that. — Audrey Niffenegger

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. — Audrey Niffenegger

Mama said, "Dreams are different to real life but important too." — Audrey Niffenegger

...all of our laments could not add a single second to her life, not one additional beat of the heart, nor a breath. — Audrey Niffenegger

I'm sorry. I didn't know you were coming or I'd have cleaned up a little more. My life, I mean, not just the apartment. — Audrey Niffenegger

Audrey Niffenegger Famous Quotes And Sayings

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. — Audrey Niffenegger

The compelling thing about making art - or making anything, I suppose - is the moment when the vaporous, insubstantial idea becomes a solid there, a thing, a substance in a world of substances. — Audrey Niffenegger

We laugh and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment. — Audrey Niffenegger

Think for a minute, darling: in fairy tales it's always the children who have the fine adventures. The mothers have to stay at home and wait for the children to fly in the window. — Audrey Niffenegger

Time passes and the pain begins to roll in and out as though it’s a woman standing at an ironing board, passing the iron back and forth, back and forth across a white tablecloth. — Audrey Niffenegger

Home sweet home. No place like home. Take me home, country roads. Home is where the heart is. But my heart is here. So I must be home. Clare sighs, turns her head, and is quiet. Hi, honey. I'm home. I'm home. — Audrey Niffenegger

I think about my mother singing after lunch on a Summer afternoon, twirling in blue dress across the floor of her dressing room — Audrey Niffenegger

The engagement ring is an emerald, and the dim light from the window is refracted green and white in it. The rings are silver, and they need cleaning. They need wearing, and I know just the girl to wear them. — Audrey Niffenegger

There was only the cemetery itself, spread out in the moonlight like a soft grey hallucination, a stony wilderness of Victorian melancholy. — Audrey Niffenegger

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. — Audrey Niffenegger

She looks up at me, still rocking. “Henry . . . why did me decide to do this again?” “Supposedly when it’s over they hand you a baby and let you keep it.” “Oh yeah.” --Wednesday, September 5, 2001 — Audrey Niffenegger

...and I suddenly feel that Henry is there, incredible need for Henry to be there and to put his hand on me even while it seems to me that Henry is the rain and I am alone and wanting him - Clare — Audrey Niffenegger

Everything seems simple until you think about it. — Audrey Niffenegger

I still feel like a castaway, th elast of a once numerous species. It was as though Robinson Crusoe discovered the telltale footprint on the beach and then realized that it was his own. Myself, small as a leaf, thin as water, begins to cry. — Audrey Niffenegger

I breathe slowly and deeply. I make my eyes still under eyelids, I make my mind still, and soon, Sleep, seeing a perfect reproduction of himself, comes to be united with his facsimile. — Audrey Niffenegger

one of the best and the most painful things about time traveling has been the opportunity to see my mother alive. — Audrey Niffenegger

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. — Audrey Niffenegger

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 than just getting older. — Audrey Niffenegger

The pain has left but I know that it has not gone far, that it is sulking somewhere in a corner or under the bed and it will jump out when I least expect it. — Audrey Niffenegger

But as usual there's no answer to this. As usual, that's just how it is. — Audrey Niffenegger

I wish for a moment that time would lift me out of this day, and into some more benign one. But then I feel guilty for wanting to avoid the sadness; dead people need us to remember them, even if it eats us, even if all we can do is say "I'm sorry" until it is as meaningless air. — Audrey Niffenegger

When the woman you live with is an artist, every day is a surprise. — Audrey Niffenegger

I love. I have loved. I will love. — Audrey Niffenegger

When somebody is that patient, you have to feel grateful, and then you want to hurt them. Does that make any sense? — Audrey Niffenegger

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? — Audrey Niffenegger

That’s the thing about living vicariously; it’s so much faster than actual living. In a few minutes we’ll be worrying about names for the children. — Audrey Niffenegger

I sometimes end up in dangerous situations, and I come back to you broken and messed up, and you worry about me when I'm gone. It's like marrying a policeman. — 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

He made the boxes because he was lonely. He didn't have anyone to love, and he made the boxes so he could love them, and so people would know that he existed, and because birds are free and the boxes are hiding places for the birds so they will feel safe, and he wanted to be free and be safe. The boxes are for him so he can be a bird. — Audrey Niffenegger

Do you ever miss him? Every day. Every minute. Every minute, she says. Yes, it's that way, isn't it? — Audrey Niffenegger

Maybe I'm dreaming you. Maybe you're dreaming me; maybe we only exist in each other's dreams and every morning when we wake up we forget all about each other. — Audrey Niffenegger

…she smiles in an exhausted but warm sort of way, as though she is a brilliant sun in some other galaxy — Audrey Niffenegger

absence can be present, like a damaged nerve, like a dark bird — Audrey Niffenegger

That's what alcoholics do. It's in their job description: fall apart and then keep falling apart. — Audrey Niffenegger

I've noticed that Henry needs an incredible amount of physical activity all the time in order to be happy. It's like hanging out with a greyhound. — Audrey Niffenegger

He looks sad. Or maybe that's just how he looks when he isn't doing something else with his face. — Audrey Niffenegger

I sit quietly and think about my mom. It's funny how memory erodes, If all I had to work from were my childhood memories, my knowledge of my mother would be faded and soft, with a few sharp memories standing out. — Audrey Niffenegger

My family isn't posh; they're musicians. — Audrey Niffenegger

And Clare, always Clare. — Audrey Niffenegger

What we need,' Henry says, 'is a fresh start. A blank slate. Let's call her Tabula Rasa. — Audrey Niffenegger

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. — Audrey Niffenegger

I guess no matter what your family is like, you're not surprised. — Audrey Niffenegger

You're the oddest person I've ever met, you couldn't get rid of me if you tried. — Audrey Niffenegger

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

The cure might be worse than the problem — Audrey Niffenegger

What is more basic than the need to be known? It is the entirety of intimacy, the elixir of love, this knowing. — Audrey Niffenegger

Mom had just gotten back from Sydney, and she had brought me an immense, surpassingly blue butterfly, Papilio ulysses, mounted in a frame filled with cotton. I would hold it close to my face, so close I couldn't see anything but that blue. It would fill me with a feeling, a feeling I later tried to duplicate with alcohol and finally found again with Clare, a feeling of unity, oblivion, mindlessness in the best sense of the word. — 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

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. — Audrey Niffenegger

He said something interesting: he said that he thinks there is only free will when you are in time, in the present. He says in the past we can only do what we did, and we can only be there if we were there. — Audrey Niffenegger

But you know: you know that if I could have stayed, if I could have gone on, that I would have clutched every second: whatever it was, this death, you know that it came and took me, like a child carried away by goblins. — Audrey Niffenegger

We are often insane with happiness. We are also very unhappy for reasons neither of us can do anything about. Like being separated. — Audrey Niffenegger

I place my hands over her ears and tip her head back, and kiss her, and try to put my heart into hers, for safekeeping, in case I lose it again. — Audrey Niffenegger

I told Ing once that she dances like a German and she didn't like it, but it's true: she dances seriously, like lives are hanging in the balance, like precision dancing can save the starving children of India. — Audrey Niffenegger

I think play must have been invented so we wouldn't go mad thinking about certain things. — Audrey Niffenegger

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

It comes out so quietly that I have to ask her to repeat it: “It’s just that I thought maybe you were married to me. — Audrey Niffenegger

It's funny how we like labels. If I ever have a bookstore, I'm not going to put any labels on the sections. — Audrey Niffenegger

My apartment is basically a couch, an armchair, and about four thousand books. — Audrey Niffenegger

Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them, standing on the edge of the water, scanning the horizon for the tiny ship. Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waiting. Why has he gone where I cannot follow? — Audrey Niffenegger

He is coming, and I am here. — Audrey Niffenegger

He thanked her and left the house in the mood of a shipwrecked man who has allowed the rescue ship to pass him by. — Audrey Niffenegger

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. — Audrey Niffenegger

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

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. — Audrey Niffenegger

In the dim light of the computer screen he seemed otherworldly; Julia thought him beautiful, though she knew it was the beauty of damage. — Audrey Niffenegger

When it's over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days. — Audrey Niffenegger

My reflection in the mirror shows me pink and puffy. I thought pregnant women were to supposed to glow. I am not glowing. — Audrey Niffenegger

...she could express her soul with that voice, whenver I listened to her I felt my life meant more than mere biology...she could really hear, she understood structure and she could analyze exactly what it was about a piece of music that had to be rendered just so...she was a very emotional person, Annette. She brought that out in other people. After she died I don't think I ever really felt anything again. — Audrey Niffenegger

It was silly, wasn't it? But the singing made it not silly. — Audrey Niffenegger

He had never realized, while Elspeth was alive, the extent to which a thing had not completely happened until he told her about it. — Audrey Niffenegger

I feel that I an everything to her. — Audrey Niffenegger

Is it sad to fancy David Tennant when you're dead? — Audrey Niffenegger

What are you doing?" Nothing. Breaking and entering. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. — Audrey Niffenegger

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. As I run I displace air, and things come and go around me, and the path moves like a filmstrip beneath my feet. — Audrey Niffenegger

I don't want to boss anyone and I don't want to be bossed. — Audrey Niffenegger

Life Lessons by Audrey Niffenegger

1. Audrey Niffenegger teaches us that perseverance is key to success, as she overcame rejections and self-doubt to become a successful author.
2. She also shows us the importance of having a creative outlet, as she used writing as a way to express her emotions and explore her imagination.
3. Finally, her work demonstrates that it is possible to create meaningful art from everyday life, as she often drew inspiration from her own experiences.