Melissa Josef > Melissa's Quotes

“A story has its purpose and its path. It must be told correctly for it to be understood.”
― Marcus Sedgwick

“There's always a third choice in life. Even if you think you're stuck between two impossible choices, there's always a third way. You just have to look for it.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, Revolver

“There never was a story that was happy through and through.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, Blood Red, Snow White

“It was like a new kind of vision, seeing with eyes as keen as scalpel blades, that cut away desires and emotions and wishful thinking and left only what was fact.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, The Dark Flight Down

“If I were dead, I wouldn't be sad, and I wouldn't be glad, because I wouldn't be.”
― Marcus Sedgwick

“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 Burgess sisters arrived together. Tara and Lainie do a little bit of everything. Sometimes dancers, sometimes actresses. Once they were librarians, but that is a subject they will only discuss if heavily intoxicated.”
― 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

“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

“Sting told me if I love somebody I should set them free.

I doubt Sting ever loved anyone with wings. If he did he might rethink such a stupid sentiment.

I suppose the point is to wait for your love to come back to you voluntarily.

I wonder if there’s a difference between setting something free and letting it go?

I probably did it wrong.

I should stop taking advice from my radio.

I worry that you’re lost.

I keep a heart-shaped cage unlocked for you, out on the street where it can easily be seen.

So if one day you return at least you’ll have a place to stay.”
― Erin Morgenstern

“People see what they wish to see. And in most cases, what they are told that they see.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“There is a movement happening, a quiet one.

A low-profile, low-resolution revolution.

Comprised of writers and dreamers, of guerrilla artists and thought-ninjas.

Those with something to say.

They communicate through text inscribed on true public spaces, rather than blogs and forums.

Choosing fewer words, even without being bound by 140 character limits.

Using ink instead of pixels.

Sending messages in living, breathing space.

Pens scream louder into the void.

Even if permanent ink is not aptly named.”
― Erin Morgenstern

“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.”
― Erin Morgenstern

“I worry hope will crush me, the way love has so many times before.

Are they so different, hope and love? O & E in the same place, half of the other in each word.

Both swimming in unknowns.

I’ve been through the big changes. These ones should seem easier in comparison, I should be more prepared, but they don’t and I’m not.

Sometimes I feel like a broken-wing butterfly, clinging to a window screen.

Afraid to let go. Afraid to stay.

Wondering how much wing is enough to fly.”
― Erin Morgenstern

“It is difficult to see a situation for what it is when you are in the midst of it,” Tsukiko says. “It is too familiar. Too comfortable.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“I am One. I value my uniqueness. If there were more like me I would hope they were small and easy to destroy.”
― Ben Hatke, Flight Explorer, Volume 1

“One person's craziness is another person's reality.”
― Tim Burton

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“There's a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep 'em all away from you. That's never possible.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It's knowing you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Are you proud of yourself tonight that you have insulted a total stranger whose circumstances you know nothing about?”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—”

“Sir?”

“—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“You taste injustice, even if it’s fictional, really taste it,it has a way of doing that. Sometimes, you can never put the shoe on the other foot. We can’t go back in time and know what it was like to be a black person then. Even today, when things are supposed to be so much better, not one of you can understand what it’s like to be black, to live with the knowledge of what happened to your ancestry and still face injustice. But that book makes us taste it and, reading it, we know how bitter that taste is and we know we don’t like it. But that bitter wakes you up, and when you wake up, you open your mind to things in this world, you make yourself think. Then you’ll decide you don’t like the taste of injustice, not for you and not for anyone, and you’ll understand that even though all the battles can’t be won, that doesn’t mean you won’t fight.”
― Kristen Ashley, Golden Trail

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin

“All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one...just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald