Rachel > Rachel's Quotes

“The finest of pleasures are always the unexpected ones.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“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.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Secrets have power. And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them. Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it. So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. 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. From the mundane to the profound. 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 what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy. Do not forget that... there are many kinds of magic, after all.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Stories have changed, my dear boy,” the man in the grey suit says, his voice almost imperceptibly sad. “There are no more battles between good and evil, no monsters to slay, no maidens in need of rescue. Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case. There are no longer simple tales with quests and beasts and happy endings. The quests lack clarity of goal or path. The beasts take different forms and are difficult to recognize for what they are. And there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep overlapping and blur, your story is part of your sister’s story is part of many other stories, and there in no telling where any of them may lead. Good and evil are a great deal more complex than a princess and a dragon, or a wolf and a scarlet-clad little girl. And is not the dragon the hero of his own story? Is not the wolf simply acting as a wolf should act? Though perhaps it is a singular wolf who goes to such lengths as to dress as a grandmother to toy with its prey.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“We lead strange lives, chasing our dreams around from place to place.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“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.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“You think, as you walk away from Le Cirque des Rêves and into the creeping dawn, that you felt more awake within the confines of the circus.
You are no longer quite certain which side of the fence is the dream.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“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.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Only the ship is made of books, its sails thousands of overlapping pages, and the sea it floats upon is dark black ink.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“To be rather than to seem.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Have you tried the cinnamon things?" Poppet asks. "They're rather new. What are they called, Widge?"

"Fantastically delicious cinnamon things?”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“I think looking forward will be better than looking back.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“I couldn't tell the difference between what was real and what I wanted to be real.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“I have been surrounded by love letters you two have built each other for years, encased in tents.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“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?”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Because I do not wish to know,” he says. “I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“You prefer not to see the gears of the clock, as to better tell time.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“We must put effort and energy into anything we wish to change.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“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, I am simply a bird in their midst.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“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.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Trespassers Will Be Exsanguinated.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“I am haunted by the ghost of my father, I think that should allow me to quote Hamlet as much as I please.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“I don't think there's anything wrong being a dreamer.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“I cannot let a place that is so important to so many people fade away. Something that is wonder and comfort and mystery all together that they have nowhere else. If you had that, wouldn't you want to keep it?”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“They are enthusiasts, devotees. Addicts. Something about the circus stirs their souls, and they ache for it when it is absent. They seek each other out, these people of such specific like mind. They tell of how they found the circus, how those first few steps were like magic. Like stepping into a fairy tale under a curtain of stars… When they depart, they shake hands and embrace like old friends, even if they have only just met, and as they go their separate ways they feel less alone than they had before.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“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.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“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.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus