The Starless Sea

by Erin Morgenstern

This is what his mother would call a moment with meaning. A moment that changes the moments that follow.

A boy at the beginning of a story has no way of knowing that the story has begun.

Reading a novel, he supposes, is like playing a game where all the choices have been made for you ahead of time by someone who is much better at this particular game.

A reading major, that’s what he wants. No response papers, no exams, no analysis, just the reading.

“A game or a book that has meaning to me might be boring to you, or vice versa. Stories are personal, you relate or you don’t.”

“Everyone is a part of a story, what they want is to be part of something worth recording. It’s that fear of mortality, ‘I Was Here and I Mattered’ mind-set.”

Those who seek will find. Their doors have been waiting for them.

“But the world is strange and endings are not truly endings no matter how the stars might wish it so.”

I suppose it’s like being haunted by your own ghost.”

“Important things hurt sometimes.”

He had always wanted to be in the place but he didn’t understand until he was finally there that the place was merely a way to get to the person and now he has lost them both.

If all endings are beginnings, are all beginnings also endings?”

“Be brave,” she says. “Be bold. Be loud. Never change for anyone but yourself. Any soul worth their star-stuff will take the whole package as is and however it grows. Don’t waste your time on anyone who doesn’t believe you when you tell them how you feel. On that Tuesday in September when you think you have no one to talk to you call me, okay? I’ll be waiting by the phone. And drive the speed limit around Buffalo.”

But this is not where their story ends. Their story is only just beginning. And no story ever truly ends as long as it is told.