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 NiffeneggerOh. 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 NiffeneggerThatโs the thing about living vicariously; itโs so much faster than actual living. In a few minutes weโll be worrying about names for the children.
Audrey NiffeneggerDo you ever miss him? Every day. Every minute. Every minute, she says. Yes, it's that way, isn't it?
Audrey NiffeneggerYou can still be cool when youโre dead. In fact, itโs much easier, because you arenโt getting old and fat and losing your hair.
Audrey NiffeneggerMom 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