Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from The Night Circus:
“The finest of pleasures are always the unexpected ones.”
“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 that they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift.”
“People see what they wish to see. And in most cases, what they are told that they see.”
“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.”
“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... there are many kinds of magic, after all.”
“Secrets have power. 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.”
“Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case.”
“Life takes us to unexpected places sometimes. The future is never set in stone, remember that.”
“I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held. Trying to control what cannot be controlled. I am tired of denying myself what I want for fear of breaking things I cannot fix. They will break no matter what we do.”
“We lead strange lives, chasing our dreams around from place to place.”
“But dreams have ways of turning into nightmares.”
“I have tried to let you go and I cannot. I cannot stop thinking of you. I cannot stop dreaming about you.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I would have written you, myself, if I could put down in words everything I want to say to you. A sea of ink would not be enough.' 'But you built me dreams instead.”
“The most difficult thing to read is time. Maybe because it changes so many things.”
“Only the ship is made of books, its sails thousands of overlapping pages, and the sea it floats upon is dark black ink.”
“Like stepping into a fairy tale under a curtain of stars.”
“You think, as you walk away from Le Cirque des Rêves and into the creeping dawn, that you felt more awake within the confines of the circus. You are no longer quite certain which side of the fence is the dream.”
“Good and evil are a great deal more complex than a princess and a dragon . . . is not the dragon the hero of his own story?”
“I made a wish on this tree years ago," Marco says."What did you wish for?" Bailey asks.Marco leans forward and whispers in Bailey's ear. "I wished for her.”
“People don’t pay much attention to anything unless you give them reason to”
“Do you remember all of your audiences?" Marco asks. "Not all of them," Celia says. "But 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."" I am not afraid of you," Marco says.”
“I couldn't tell the difference between what was real and what I wanted to be real.”
“To be rather than to seem.”
“I have been surrounded by love letters you two have built each other for years, encased in tents.”
“I do not mourn the loss of my sister because she will always be with me, in my heart," she says. "I am, however, rather annoyed that my Tara has left me to suffer you lot alone. I do not see as well without her. I do not hear as well without her. I do not feel as well without her. I would be better off without a hand or a leg than without my sister. Then at least she would be here to mock my appearance and claim to be the pretty one for a change. We have all lost our Tara, but I have lost a part of myself as well.”
“Everything I have done, every change I have made to that circus, every impossible feat and astounding sight, I have done for her.”
“And 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.”
“The truest tales require time and familiarity to become what they are.”
