The Night Circus

by Erin Morgenstern

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

principaux

“Better to have a single perfect diamond than a sack of flawed stones.

Wunschtraum

He reads histories and mythologies and fairy tales, wondering why it seems that only girls are ever swept away from their mundane lives on farms by knights or princes or wolves. It strikes him as unfair to not have the same fanciful opportunity himself. And he is not in the position to do any rescuing of his own.

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

“As though they cannot decide if they are afraid of me or they want to kiss me.” “I am not afraid of you,” Marco says.

winner is not declared,” her father says. “The game is played out, not stopped.

“I feel like one of those girls in fairy tales, the ones who don’t even have shoes and then somehow get to attend a ball at the castle,” Bailey whispers,

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.

Good and evil are a great deal more complex than a princess and a dragon, or a wolf and a scarlet-clad little girl.

nonsense, but ways of making the universe more accessible.

Very, very few people take the time to learn them nowadays, unfortunately, and even fewer have natural access.

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.”

“The circus arrives without warning.”