The boy spends most of his time reading. And writing, of course. He copies out sections of books, writes out words and symbols he does not understand at first but that become intimately familiar beneath his ink-stained fingers, formed again and again in increasingly steady lines.
Erin MorgensternI find I think of myself not as a writer so much as someone who provides a gateway, a tangential route for readers to reach the circus. To visit the circus again, if only in their minds, when they are unable to attend it physically. I relay it through printed words on crumpled newsprint, words that they can read again and again, returning to the circus whenever they wish, regardless of time of day or physical location. Transporting them at will. When put that way, it sounds rather like magic, doesn't it? p.369
Erin MorgensternShe turns her head, Bailey catches her eye, and she smiles at him. Not in the way that one smiles at a random member of the audience when one is in the middle of performing circus tricks with unusually talented kittens but in the way that one smiles when one recognizes someone they have not seen in some time.
Erin MorgensternI worry hope will crush me, the way love has so many times before. Are they so different, hope and love? O & E in the same place, half of the other in each word. Both swimming in unknowns. Iโve been through the big changes. These ones should seem easier in comparison, I should be more prepared, but they donโt and Iโm not. Sometimes I feel like a broken-wing butterfly, clinging to a window screen. Afraid to let go. Afraid to stay. Wondering how much wing is enough to fly.
Erin Morgenstern