The Night Circus

by Erin Morgenstern

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. —OSCAR WILDE, 1888

everything requires energy,” she recites obediently, eyes still focused on her hand. “We must put effort and energy into anything we wish to change.”

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

this place is very French, I think that’s part of the charm. So many places here don’t bother to be charming.”

“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,”

“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.”

“That’s probably very good for indecisive people,” Bailey says, smiling when Poppet and Widget both laugh. “It is hard to choose a tent, you know, when there are so many.”

We are surrounded by endless options, and instead of freeing us, they often leave us stuck, afraid to choose in case we pick the wrong tent.

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.

even trying. By the time he reaches the farm, he is sure that the Bailey he is now is closer to the Bailey he is supposed to be than the Bailey he had been the day before.

she is in love with the dream of someone and not an actual person.”

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.”

It made me think about how people often react to dreamers the same way. They are drawn to what they represent, the possibility of something more, but also afraid of it because it reminds them of the parts of themselves they have let go of.

“You smile as though you have a secret,” he says.

I should have known it was you.” “And why is that?” Marco asks. “Because you pretend to be less than you are,”

People often do that too. They pretend to be smaller, quieter, less bright because it feels easier than standing out in a world that doesn't know what to do with them

think your lessons were a great deal less academic than mine.” “I would have preferred more reading.” “I think it strange we were prepared in drastically different ways for the same challenge,” Marco says. He looks at Celia’s hand again, though now there is clearly nothing amiss, no indication that it was stabbed only moments ago. “I suspect that is part of the point,”

We are all prepared differently for the same challenge, the challenge of life. No two paths or lessons look the same, yet we are all trying to make sense of the same world and there is no single "right" way or best rulebook to follow

‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’

I love when books reference thisThe world is wider than we allow ourselves to imagine, and the moment we stop believing that, we stop seeing the magic that was there all along.

The breaking is the easy part, Celia realizes. The pulling back together is the problem.

Picking up the pieces and finding purpose after bad things happen is much harder, which is why most people stay focused on who hurt them, what went wrong, and how life failed them. They turn that story into their identity, their reason for staying the same, instead of their reason to grow.

It would be so simple to let go. It would be so much easier to let go. So much less painful.

she is a fair deal older than she appears, and that the same is likely true of Marco. It is like realizing someone in a photograph is no longer the same age as they were when it was taken, and they seem farther away because of it.

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.

there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep going on, they overlap and blur, your story is part of your sister’s story is part of many other stories, and there is 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?...

The truest tales require time and familiarity to become what they are.”

I am content to accept inevitabilities, even if I have ways of putting them off.

“Is magic not enough to live for?” Widget asks. “Magic,” the man in the grey suit repeats, turning the word into a laugh. “This is not magic. This is the way the world is, only very few people take the time to stop and note it. Look around you,”

“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.”

“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. 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.” He takes another sip of his wine. “There are many kinds of magic, after all.”

What would your Bailey be, had he not been so adopted into your circus? Nothing but a dreamer, longing for something he does not even understand.”

don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a dreamer.”

Wine is bottled poetry,

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