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 NiffeneggerI hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going. - Henry deTamble
Audrey NiffeneggerCLARE: The library is cool and smells like carpet cleaner, although all I can see is marble.
Audrey NiffeneggerThe hardest lesson is Clareโs solitude. Sometimes I come home and Clare seems kind of irritated; Iโve interrupted some train of thought, broken into the dreary silence of her day. Sometimes I see an expression on Clareโs face that is like a closed door. She has gone inside the room of her mind and is sitting there knitting or something. Iโve discovered that Clare likes to be alone. But when I return from time traveling she is always relieved to see me.
Audrey NiffeneggerI think about my mother singing after lunch on a Summer afternoon, twirling in blue dress across the floor of her dressing room
Audrey NiffeneggerLong 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