Erin Morgenstern Quotes

Not a single person in that audience believes for a second that what I do up there is real," he says, gesturing in the general direction of the stage. "That's the beauty of it. Have you seen the contraptions these magicians build to accomplish the most mundane feats? They are a bunch of fish covered in feathers trying to convince the public they can fly, and I am simply a bird in their midst. The audience cannot tell the difference beyond knowing that I am better at it.

The past stays on you the way powdered sugar stays on your fingers. Some people can get rid of it but it's still there, the events and things that pushed you to where you are now.

A soft breeze plays with her hair, bringing with it the mingling scent of dusty tomes and damp, rich ink.

This person is a place Zachary could lose himself in, and never wish to be found.

Do you remember all of your audiences?" Marco asks.
"Not all of them," Celia says. "But I remember the people who look at me the way you do."
"What way might that be?"
"As though they cannot decide if they are afraid of me or they want to kiss me."
" I am not afraid of you," Marco says.

For those who feel homesick for a place they've never been to. Those who seek even if they do not know what (or where) it is that they are seeking. Those who seek will find. Their doors have been waiting for them.

He will always choose the circus.

Writing in a near frenzy is wonderful and freeing, but for me, it did not result in a nice, shiny novel. Instead, what I have is a mess.

The sheep are in a terrible mood today as Bailey attempts to usher them from one field to another. They have resisted prodding, swearing, and pushing, insisting that the grass in their current field is much nicer than the grass just on the other side of the gate in the low stone wall, no matter how much Bailey tries to persuade them otherwise.

I think looking forward will be better than looking back.

Taking his time, as though he has all of it in the world, in the universe, from the days when tales meant more than they do now, but perhaps less than they will someday, he draws a breath that releases the tangled knot of words in his heart, and they fall from his lips effortlessly.
The circus arrives without warning.

Everyone wants the stars. Everyone wishes to grasp that which exists out of reach. To hold the extraordinary in their hands and keep the remarkable in their pockets.

Only a single cat notices them in this moment and though the cat recognizes this mistake for what it is, it does not interfere. It is not the way of cats to interfere with fate.

It takes the better part of those months for Herr Thiessen to complete the clock. He works on little else, though the sum of money involved makes the arrangement more than manageable. Weeks are spent on the design and the mechanics. He hires an assistant to complete some of the basic woodwork, but he takes care of all the details himself. Herr Thiessen loves details and he loves a challenge. He balances the entire design on that one specific word Mr. Barris used. Dreamlike.
The finished clock is resplendent. At first glance it is simply a clock, a rather large black clock with a white face and a silver pendulum. Well crafted, obviously, with intricately carved woodwork edges and a perfectly painted face, but just a clock.
But that is before it is wound. Before it begins to tick, the pendulum swinging steadily and evenly. Then, then it becomes something else.
The changes are slow. First, the color changes in the face, shifts from white to grey, and then there are clouds that float across it, disappearing when they reach the opposite side.
Meanwhile, bits of the body of the clock expand and contract, like pieces of a puzzle. As thought clock is falling apart, slowly and gracefully.
All of this takes hours.
The face of the clock becomes a darker grey, and then black, with twinkling stars where the numbers had been previously. The body of the clock, which has been methodically turning itself inside out and expanding, is now entirely subtle sha

We must put effort and energy into anything we wish to change.

Mercury. Lead. Antimony. A cresent moon sits at the nape of her neck; and Egyptian ankh near her collarbone. There are other symbols as well: Norse runes, Chinese characters.
It is part of who I was, who I am, and who I will be.

The sound of his pencil scratching against paper is as methodical and precise as the ticking of the clock in the corner.

A reading major, that's what he wants. No response papers, no exams, no analysis, just the reading.

I am haunted by the ghost of my father, I think that should allow me to quote Hamlet as much as I please.

the hint of triumph out of her voice. It

Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case.

There are so many questions, so many things she longs to discuss despite her father's constant nagging about not concerning herself with her opponent. But at the same time, she feels suddenly exposed, aware that he has always known where each of them stood. Known every time he opened a door for her or took notes for Chandresh. Every time he stared at her as he does now, with those disconcertingly bright-green eyes. Still, it is a tempting invitation.

Comic-Con was crazy, good crazy ... Five minutes after I'm done, the cast of 'Twilight' is where I was sitting.

They are a bunch of fish covered in feathers trying to convince the public they can fly, and I am simply a bird in their midst.

Where do you get your ideas? people ask. Sometimes they're at the bottoms of cups of tea. Sometimes they're lurking in my shower. Sometimes they're waiting patiently in glass cases in museums.

There are tents, I am certain, that I have not discovered in my many visits to the circus. Though I have seen a great deal of the sights, traveled a number of the available paths, there are always corners that remain unexplored, doors that remain unopened. -Friedrick Thiessen, 1896

How is it better?" Celia asks. "How is anything better than anything else here? How is one tent comparable to another? How can any of this possibly be judged?" "That is not your concern." "How can I excel at a game when you refuse to tell me the rules?" The

Every eye in the crowded ballroom turns in their direction. And then he releases her and walks away.
By the time Marco leaves the room, almost everyone has forgotten the incident entirely.

Endings are what gives stories meaning.

I think the whole story has meaning but I also think to have a whole story-shaped story it needs some sort of resolution. Not even a resolution, some appropriate place to leave it. A goodbye. I think the best stories feel like they're still going, somewhere, out in story space.

It is a different sensation than watching the stars while lying in a field, something Bailey has done many times. There are no trees creeping into the edges, and the gentle swaying of the carriage makes him feel almost weightless. And it is incredibly quiet. As the carriage moves along in what seems to be a circular pattern, Bailey can hear nothing but a soft creak and the sound of Poppet breathing next to him. It is as though the entire circus has faded away into the darkness. He glances over at Poppet, who is looking at him instead of the sky. She gives him a grin and then turns away. Bailey wonders if he should ask if she sees anything in the stars.

I think that's a hallmark of a really good story that it has readers that it speaks to more than others.

I couldn't tell the difference between what was real and what I wanted to be real.

We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. - PROSPERO, THE TEMPEST, ACT IV, SCENE 1

Secrets have power," Widget begins. "And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well.

You're in the right place at the right time, and you care enough to do what needs to be done. Sometimes that's enough.

There's magic in that. It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict.

And there are always those who would watch Alexandria burn.
There always have been. There always will be.

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.

Far beneath the surface of the earth, hidden from the sun and the moon, upon the shores of the Starless Sea, there is a labyrinthine collection of tunnels and rooms filled with stories. Stories written in books and sealed in jars and painted on walls. Odes inscribed onto skin and pressed into rose petals. Tales laid in tiles upon the floors, bits of plot worn away by passing feet. Legends carved in crystal and hung from chandeliers. Stories catalogued and cared for and revered. Old stories preserved while new stories spring up around them.

Everything I have done, every change I have made to that circus, every impossible feat and astounding sight, I have done for her.

You are no longer quite certain which side of the fence is a dream.

Love is fickle and fleeting," Tsukiko continues. "It is rarely a solid foundation for decisions to be made upon, in any game.

You cannot stop things. You can only be prepared for them to happen.

A language you cannot speak yourself is not necessarily a god-awful mess, Celia says, transcribing a line of symbols into her notebook.

The Cloud Maze.
An Excursion in Dimension A Climb Though the Firmament; There Is No Beginning There Is No End
Enter Where You Please
Leave When You Wish
Have No Fear of Falling

How are you managing to keep everyone from aging?" Celia asks after a while.
"Very carefully," Marco answers.

The funeral is a quiet one, despite the number of mourners present. There are no sobs or flailing handkerchiefs. There is a smattering of color amongst the sea of traditional black. Even the light rain cannot push it down into the realms of despair. It rests instead in a space of thoughtful melancholy.

Sometimes life gets weird. You can try to ignore it or you can see where weird takes you.

Better to have a single perfect diamond than a sack of flawed stones.

Nothing's impossible, Poppet responds. She smiles at him and jumps, her red hair trailing out behind her as she falls.

If I have not been completely honest with you, it is only because I know a great deal of things that you do not want to know. I am going to ask that you trust me when I tell you I am trying to make things better. It is an extremely delicate balance and there are a great many factors involved. The best we can do right now is take everything as it comes, and not to worry ourselves over things that have happened, or things that are to come.

You can say anything with a Post-It.
I'm not entirely sure why that is.
Maybe the friendliness of the squares makes it easier. A square is nicely compact and less intimidating than a full page.
And they come in cheerful colors. Non-white paper is kind of inherently festive.
Or maybe paper that sticks feels more important than paper that can blow away.
(Though you can move them, if you need to put them somewhere else.)
They might not be as lasting as words carved in stone, but Post-It thoughts will stay.
For awhile, at least.

She is young enough to carry fear with her without letting it into her heart. Without being scared. She wears her fear lightly, like a veil, aware that there are dangers but letting the crackling awareness hover around her. It does not sink in, it buzzes in excitement like a swarm of invisible bees.

Grow up, Bailey."
"That is precisely what I'm doing," Bailey says. "I don't care if you don't understand that. Staying here won't make me happy. It will make you happy because you're insipid and boring, and an insipid, boring life is enough for you. It's not enough for me. It will never be enough for me. So I'm leaving. Do me a favor and marry someone who will take decent care of the sheep.

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Look around you, he says, waving a hand at the surrounding tables. Not a one of them even has an inkling of the things that are possible in this world, and what's worse is that none of them would listen if you attempted to enlighten them. They want to believe that magic is nothing but clever deception, because to think it real would keep them up at night, afraid of their own existence.

When all of this is over, no matter which one of us wins, I will not let you go so easily. Agreed?

As you walk farther into the room it becomes a field of endless streetlamps, the stripes repeating in fractal patterns, over and over and over.

But he doesn't open the box anymore. It sits, firmly closed, in the tree. He thinks maybe he should throw it away, but he cannot bring himself to do it. Perhaps he will leave it in the tree and let the bark grow over it, sealing it inside.

Most times things make sense, eventually.

I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held. Trying to control what cannot be controlled. I am tired of denying myself what I want for fear of breaking things I cannot fix. They will break no matter what we do.

It bothers him most at times like this, in the bottom of the brandy bottle and the quiet of the night.

You prefer not to see the gears of the clock, as to better tell time.

Symbols are for interpretation, not definition.

The future is never set in stone.

It is too difficult to see a situation for what it is when you are in the midst of it.

People are naive about such things, and they would rather write them off as evil than attempt to understand them. An unfortunate truth, but a truth nonetheless.

It is perhaps both a blessing and a curse that fictional worlds spring into my mind nearly fully formed and it takes quite a while to sift through everything to find the story.

He reads histories and mythologies and fairy tales, wondering why it seems that only girls are ever swept away from their mundane lives on farms by knights or princes or wolves. It strikes him as unfair to not have the same fanciful opportunity himself. And he is not in the position to do any rescuing of his own.

It arrived only a few days ago and is still a novelty. Had it been present for longer, Caroline likely would have chosen a different dare, but the circus is currently the talk of the town, and Caroline likes to keep her dares en vogue.

Sometimes I write what I can't paint, and I paint what I can't write. I use a different part of the brain.

Why haven't you asked me how I do my tricks?" Celia asks, once they have reached the point where she is certain he is not simply being polite about the matter. "Because I do not wish to know," he says. "I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better remain in the dark.

... there is less magic in the world today. Magic is secret and secrets are magic, after all ...

The sign outside this tent is accompanied by a small box full of smooth black stones. The text instructs you to take one with you as you enter. Inside, the tent is dark, the ceiling covered with open black umbrellas, the curving handles hanging down like icicles. In the center of the room there is a pool. A pond enclosed within a black stone wall that is surrounded by white gravel. The air carries the salty tinge of the ocean. You walk over to the edge to look inside. The gravel crunches beneath your feet. It is shallow, but it is glowing. A shimmering, shifting light cascades up through the surface of the water. A soft radiance, enough to illuminate the pool and the stones that sit at the bottom. Hundreds of stones, each identical to the one you hold in your hand. The light beneath filters through the spaces between the stones. Reflections ripple around the room, making it appear as though the entire tent is underwater. You sit on the wall, turning your black stone over and over in your fingers. The stillness of the tent becomes a quiet melancholy. Memories begin to creep forward from hidden corners of your mind. Passing disappointments. Lost chances and lost causes. Heartbreaks and pain and desolate, horrible loneliness. Sorrows you thought long forgotten mingle with still-fresh wounds. The stone feels heavier in your hand. When you drop it in the pool to join the rest of the stones, you feel lighter. As though you have released something more than a smooth polished piece o

My train was late that day. the day I saw you drop your notebook. Had it been on schedule we never would have met. Maybe we were never meant to.

a paper star that has been unfolded and refolded
into a tiny unicorn but the unicorn remembers a time
when it was a star and an earlier time when it was part of
a book and sometimes the unicorn dreams of the time before
it was a book when it was a tree and the time even longer
before that when it was a different sort of star

I'm actually not a huge circus fan in the traditional sense, but I like a lot of the circus trappings of striped tents and caramel. I lean more towards Cirque du Soleil than Barnum and Bailey.

Time passes. Things change.

Often diners remark that they are too pretty, too impressive to eat, but they always find a way to manage.

Figs that drip with honey, sugar blown into curls and flowers.

The pirate is a metaphor but also still a person.

I tried to explain as much as I could," Poppet says. "I think I made an analogy about cake."
"Well, that must have worked," Widget says. "Who doesn't like a good cake analogy?

But I'm not special", Bailey says, "not the way they are. I'm not anyone important."
"I know", Celia said, "you are not destined or chosen. I wish I could tell you that you were if that would make it easier, but it is not true. You are in the right place, at the right time, and you care enough to do what needs to be done. Sometimes that is enough.

Real places are never captured in words. There is always more.

Wine is bottled poetry, he thinks [...] He wonders if the poem of the circus could possibly be bottled.

You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows that they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift.

The night that seemed endless hours before is now slipping through your fingers, ticking by as it falls into the past and pushes you towards the future.

Gates Open at Nightfall & Close at Dawn in swirly lettering, and under that, in tiny plain letters: Trespassers Will Be Exsanguinated Bailey doesn't know what "exsanguinated" means, but he doesn't much like the sound of it.

So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours.
This is, in part, why there is less magic in the world today. Magic is secret and secrets are magic, after all, and years upon years of teaching and sharing magic and worse. Writing it down in fancy books that get all dusty with age has lessened it, removed its power bit by bit. It was inevitable, perhaps, but not unavoidable. Everyone makes mistakes.

I mean only that I hope they find darkness or paradise without fear of it, if they can.

During the hours spent watching the sheep as they wander aimlessly around their fields, he even wishes that someone would come and take him away, but wishes on sheep appear to work no better than wishes on stars.

And yet I cannot be myself. You teach me all these things and then you put me here to pretend to be something I am not, while she is center stage, doing exactly what she does.

Love is fickle and fleeting,

I do not like being left in the dark. I am not particularly fond of believing in impossible things.

It is a matter of perspective, between opponent and partner ... You step to the side and the same person can be either or both or something else entirely.

Memories begin to creep forward from hidden corners of your mind. Passing disappointments. Lost chances and lost causes. Heartbreaks and pain and desolate, horrible loneliness. Sorrows you thought long forgotten mingle with still-fresh wounds.

It is easier to be in love in a room with closed doors. To have the whole world in one room. One person. The universe condensed and intensified and burning, bright and alive and electric.

Reading a novel, he supposes, is like playing a game where all the choices have been made for you ahead of time by someone who is much better at this particular game. (Though he sometimes wishes choose-your-own-adventure novels would come back into fashion.)

I suggest you keep your distance from her and concentrate on your own work."
"I'm in love with her."
"I am sorry to hear that," he says. "It will make the challenge a great deal more difficult for you."
"We have been playing at this for more than a decade, when does it end?"
"It ends when there is a victor.

Herr Thiessen is always pleased when the circus arrives in his native Germany, but this time he is particularly delighted that it has arrived quite near Munich, so there is no need for him to secure rooms in another city. Also,

He turns and walks away, moving so quickly that the candle flames shiver with the motion of the air. "I miss you," Isobel says as he leaves, but the sentiment is crushed by the clatter of the beaded curtain falling closed behind him.