At the center, where a cuckoo bird would live in a more traditional timepiece, is the juggler. Dressed in harlequin style with a grey mask, he juggles shiny silver balls that correspond to each hour. As the clock chimes, another ball joins the rest until at midnight he juggles twelve balls in a complex pattern.

Erin Morgenstern

Categorized in : Numbers Clouds Dream

Memories begin to creep forward from hidden corners of your mind. Passing disappointments. Lost chances and lost causes. Heartbreaks and pain and desolate, horrible loneliness. Sorrows you thought long forgotten mingle with still-fresh wounds.

Erin Morgenstern

pain disappointment memories

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

Erin Morgenstern

cases wish people

Celia." he says without looking up at her, "why do we wind our watch?" "Because everything requires energy," she recites obediently, eyes still focused on her hand. "We must put effort and energy into anything we wish to change.

Erin Morgenstern

eye wind hands

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.

Erin Morgenstern

tired trying life

Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case.

Erin Morgenstern

maidens circus cases

The finest of pleasures are always the unexpected ones.

Erin Morgenstern

circus finest unexpected

I have tried to let you go and I cannot. I cannot stop thinking of you. I cannot stop dreaming about you.

Erin Morgenstern

lovers dream thinking-of-you

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.

Erin Morgenstern

sister loss heart

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.

Erin Morgenstern

self blood moving

It is likely to make us think we are not caged. We cannot feel the bars unless we push against them.

Erin Morgenstern

bars feels thinking

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.

Erin Morgenstern

circus warning yesterday

They say it's darkest before the dawn, but it also tend to be quietest, and the quiet lets you hear yourself better.

Erin Morgenstern

brokenhearted dawn quiet

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

Erin Morgenstern

black-and-white unique night

The past stays on you the way powdered sugar stays on your fingers. Some people can get rid of it but it’s still there, the events and things that pushed you to where you are now.

Erin Morgenstern

events people past

The circus looks abandoned and empty. But you think perhaps you can smell caramel wafting through the evening breeze, beneath the crisp scent of the autumn leaves. A subtle sweetness at the edges of the cold.

Erin Morgenstern

autumn smell thinking

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.

Erin Morgenstern

eye real writing

Follow your dreams Bailey. Be they Harvard or somehing 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

Erin Morgenstern

dream might father

I think looking forward will be better than looking back.

Erin Morgenstern

looking-back looking-forward thinking

Grow up, Bailey." "That is precisely what I'm doing," Bailey says. "I don't care if you don't understand that. Staying here won't make me happy. It will make you happy because you're insipid and boring, and an insipid, boring life is enough for you. It's not enough for me. It will never be enough for me. So I'm leaving. Do me a favor and marry someone who will take decent care of the sheep.

Erin Morgenstern

growing-up leaving sheep

I couldn't tell the difference between what was real and what I wanted to be real.

Erin Morgenstern

differences real wanted