The Time Traveler’s Wife
“The compelling thing about art – or making anything, I suppose – is the moment when the vaporous, insubstantial idea becomes a solid there, a substance in the world of substances. Circe, Nimbue, Artemis, Athena, all the sorceresses: they must have known the feeling as they transformed mere men into fabulous creatures, stole the secrets of the magicians, disposed armies: ah, look, there it is, a new thing. Call it a swine, a war, a laurel tree. Call it art. The magic I can make is small magic now, deferred magic. Every day I work, but nothing ever materializes. I feel like Penelope, weaving and unweaving.”
from The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger pg. 284
The Time Traveler’s Wife
“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.”
from The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger pg. 402
The Time Traveler’s Wife
“‘She wrote me a poem,”Clare says, again, in wonder. Tears are streaking down her cheeks. I put my arms around her, and she’s back, my wife, Clare, safe and sound on the shore at last after the shipwreck, weeping like a little girl whose mother is waving to her from the deck of the foundering boat.”
from The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger pg. 342
The Time Traveler’s Wife
“‘Clare, your hair is full of sand,” says Henry. I stop and lean over and beat my hair like a carpet with my hand. A whole beach falls out of it.”
from The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger pg. 295
The Time Traveler’s Wife
“I am like a caterpillar in a cocoon of paper; all around me are sketches of sculptures, small drawings that seem like moths fluttering against the windows, beating their wings to escape from this tiny space. “
from The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger pg. 284
The Time Traveler’s Wife
“…she smiles in an exhausted but warm sort of way, as though she is a brilliant sun in some other galaxy.”
from The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger pg. 170
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
“The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge.” pg. 3
“Whenever people eat or drink, it’s communion.” pg. 8
“Ghosts and vampires are never only about ghosts and vampires.” pg. 17
“There’s no such thing as a wholly original work of literature.” pg. 29
“It’s never just rain.” pg. 75
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
“Here’s the problem with symbols: people expect them to mean something. Not just any something, something in particular. Exactly. Maximum. You know what? It doesn’t work like that… so some symbols do have a relatively limited range of meanings, but in general a symbol can’t be reduced to standing for only one thing.”
from How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster pgs. 97-98
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
“Most professional students of literature learn to take in the foreground detail while seeing the detail reveals. Like the symbolic imagination, this is a function of being able to distance oneself from the story, to look beyond the purely affective level of plot, drama, characters. Experience has proved to them that life and books fall into similar patterns. Nor is this skill exclusive to English professors. Good mechanics, the kind that used to fix cars before computerized diagnostics, use pattern recognition to diagnose engine troubles: if this and this are happening, then check that. Literature is full of patterns, and your reading experience will be much more rewarding when you can step back from the work, even while you’re reading it, and look for those patterns.”
from How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster pg. xvi
