“I find I think of myself not as a writer so much as someone who provides a gateway, a tangential route for readers to reach the circus. To visit the circus again, if only in their minds, when they are unable to attend it physically. I relay it through printed words on crumpled newsprint, words that they can read again and again, returning to the circus whenever they wish, regardless of time of day or physical location. Transporting them at will.
When put that way, it sounds rather like magic, doesn't it?”
― The Night Circus
When put that way, it sounds rather like magic, doesn't it?”
― 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.”
― The Night Circus
― 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.”
― The Night Circus
― 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.”
― The Night Circus
― The Night Circus
“Trespassers Will Be Exsanguinated.”
― The Night Circus
― The Night Circus
Bella’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Bella’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Bella
Lists liked by Bella






















