The Night Circus

by Erin Morgenstern

“People see what they wish to see. And in most cases, what they are told that they see.”

“Nothing is impossible,”

“It is part of who I was, who I am, and who I will be.”

“Follow your dreams, Bailey,” she says. “Be they Harvard or something else entirely. No matter what that father of yours says, or how loudly he might say it. He forgets that he was someone’s dream once, himself.”

“The finest of pleasures are always the unexpected ones,”

“There may be decisions to make, and surprises in store. Life takes us to unexpected places sometimes. The future is never set in stone, remember that.”

“Secrets have power,” Widget begins. “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.

“I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark.”

“I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held,”

“The most difficult thing to read is time,” Isobel says, and Marco stops, turning back to her. “Maybe because it changes so many things.

“You ask a lot of questions,” Tsukiko responds. “You don’t answer very many of them,” Bailey retaliates.

“You’re not destined or chosen, I wish I could tell you that you were if that would make it easier, but it’s not true. 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.”

“Dedicate to M. Alisdair and C. Bowen”

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.

“It is important,” the man in the grey suit interrupts. “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.

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.”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a dreamer.” “There is not. But dreams have ways of turning into nightmares. I suspect Monsieur Lefèvre knows something of that. You’d be better off letting the whole endeavor fade away into myth and oblivion. All empires fall eventually. It is the way of things. Perhaps it is time to let this one go.”

“The circus arrives without warning.”

Le Cirque des Rêves

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