Top 500 Erin Morgenstern Quotes (2025 Update)
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301. “The painter spends her time in solitude and contemplation categorizing losses and regrets trying to determine if there was ever anything she could have done to prevent any of them or if they simply passed through her life and out again like waves upon a shore.”

— Erin Morgenstern

302. “Even the ground beneath his feet feels unsatisfying to his boots.”

— Erin Morgenstern

303. “Do you know why I gave my daughter permission to marry your father? Because she would have run off with him regardless. Follow your dreams, Bailey,” she says. “Be they Harvard or something 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

304. “They are gods with lost myths, writing themselves new ones.”

— Erin Morgenstern

305. “When the beaded curtain parts with a sound like rain, it is Marco who enters the fortune-teller’s chamber, and Isobel immediately flips her veil from her face, the impossibly thin black silk floating back over her head like mist.”

— Erin Morgenstern

306. “He pulls the girl close to keep her warm. He kisses her shoulder, pretending he will have her for a lifetime when in truth they have only minutes left together.”

— Erin Morgenstern

307. “She wears her worry like a coat she never takes off.”

— Erin Morgenstern

308. “She tries to think the way she imagines Marco.”

— Erin Morgenstern

309. “I thought a circus environment would be an interesting venue to explore, where you didn’t just have one tent with three rings and a show going on but where you could explore different things in different tents.”

— Erin Morgenstern

310. “He finds himself wishing the proper people to talk to would light up or have hovering indicator arrows over their heads or dialogue options to choose from.”

— Erin Morgenstern

311. “Most cats will do anything if you ask them nicely.”

— Erin Morgenstern

312. “It’s lovely, the way wishes are added to it, by lighting candles with ones that are already lit and adding them to the branches. New wishes ignited by old wishes.”

— Erin Morgenstern

313. “Fates Foretold and Darkest Desires Disclosed.”

— Erin Morgenstern

314. “I know, interference is one of the very few things that is apparently against the rules. I do not intend to interfere, I intend to learn his systems so I can stop having to constantly manage so much of the circus.”

— Erin Morgenstern

315. “He believes in books, he thinks as he leaves the room. That much he knows for sure.”

— Erin Morgenstern

316. “Look around you, he says, waving a hand at the surrounding tables. Not a one of them even has an inkling of the things that are possible in this world, and what’s worse is that none of them would listen if you attempted to enlighten them. They want to believe that magic is nothing but clever deception, because to think it real would keep them up at night, afraid of their own existence.”

— Erin Morgenstern

317. “Do me a favor and marry someone who will take decent care of the sheep.”

— Erin Morgenstern

318. “Los secretos tienen poder. Y ese poder disminuye cuando son compartidos, asi que estan bien guardados y bien cuidados. Compartir secretos, secretos reales, importantes, con una persona, los cambiara.”

— Erin Morgenstern

319. “I have seen a great many things that I might once have considered impossible, or unbelievable. I find I no longer have clearly defined parameters for such matters. I choose to do my work to the best of my own abilities, and leave others to their own.”

— Erin Morgenstern

320. “As he watches her in the flickering light, it strikes Bailey suddenly that she is a fair deal older than she appears, and that the same is likely true of Marco. It is like realizing someone in a photograph is no longer the same age as they were when it was taken, and they seem farther away because of it.”

— Erin Morgenstern

321. “He thought he would have figured out what he believes before it all came to an end but he has not.”

— Erin Morgenstern

322. “Everyone spends nights on the floor of their closet during grad school.”

— Erin Morgenstern

323. “My train was late that day. the day I saw you drop your notebook. Had it been on schedule we never would have met. Maybe we were never meant to.”

— Erin Morgenstern

324. “I knew that, and still it surprised me. How long I was willing to wait for something that was only a possibility. I always thought it was just a matter of time, but I was wrong.”

— Erin Morgenstern

325. “It is a modest flat with basic furnishings, so similar to his former rooms that he finds it difficult to feel anything resembling homesickness, save for the library, though he still possesses an impressive number of books.”

— Erin Morgenstern

326. “How is it better?” Celia asks. “How is anything better than anything else here? How is one tent comparable to another? How can any of this possibly be judged?” “That is not your concern.” “How can I excel at a game when you refuse to tell me the rules?”

— Erin Morgenstern

327. “We cannot feel the bars unless we push against them.”

— Erin Morgenstern

328. “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.”

— Erin Morgenstern

329. “He can’t even think how to describe it. It’s like an art museum and an overflowing library were relocated into a subway system.”

— Erin Morgenstern

330. “Each door will lead to a Harbor on the Starless Sea, if someone dares to open it.”

— Erin Morgenstern

331. “Each of us has our own path, Mr Rawlins. Symbols are for interpretation, not definition.”

— Erin Morgenstern

332. “Perhaps she herself is a page that was torn from a story and folded into a star and thrown in the shadows to be forgotten.”

— Erin Morgenstern

333. “Once they were librarians, but that is a subject they will only discuss if heavily intoxicated.”

— Erin Morgenstern

334. “The stories of a place are not easily contained.”

— Erin Morgenstern

335. “How are you managing to keep everyone from aging?” Celia asks after a while. “Very carefully,” Marco answers. “And they are aging, albeit extremely slowly. How are you moving the circus?” “On a train.” “A train?” Marco asks, incredulous. “The entire circus moved by a single train?” “It’s a large train,” Celia says. “And it’s magic,” she adds, making Marco laugh. “I confess, Miss Bowen, you are not what I had expected.” “I assure you that feeling is mutual.”

— Erin Morgenstern

336. “Herr Thiessen is always pleased when the circus arrives in his native Germany, but this time he is particularly delighted that it has arrived quite near Munich, so there is no need for him to secure rooms in another city.”

— Erin Morgenstern

337. “He keeps notebooks full of symbols and glyphs, working through his old notes and finding new elements to consider. He carries smaller volumes with him at all times, transcribing them into larger ones once they are filled.”

— Erin Morgenstern

338. “An accumulation of unforeseen circumstances.”

— Erin Morgenstern

339. “Zachary peels and eats a mandarin orange in small segments of sunshine as he reads.”

— Erin Morgenstern

340. “It’s nothing I can clearly see as good or bad, but it is... intense.” Isobel pushes the cards around a bit, Le Bateleur and La Papessa surrounded by fire-tinged wands and watery cups. The crackle of the fire next to them mingles with the rain pattering against the windows. “It almost contradicts itself,” she says after a moment. “It’s as if there is love and loss at the same time, together in a kind of beautiful pain.”

— Erin Morgenstern

341. “Do you sometimes feel like you are dreaming, all the time?”

— Erin Morgenstern

342. “It is a flowing waterfall of alchemical and astrological symbols, ancient marks for planets and elements all emblazoned in black ink upon her fair skin.”

— Erin Morgenstern

343. “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

344. “I speak languages with more ease than I read or write them, she explains. It is something in the feel of the sounds. I could attempt to put them on paper but I am sure the result would be appalling.”

— Erin Morgenstern

345. “They seek each other out, these people of such specific like mind. They tell of how they found the circus, how those first few steps were like magic.”

— Erin Morgenstern

346. “Is it the way it is in the book? He aches to know but he also suspects real places are never properly captured in words. There is always more.”

— Erin Morgenstern

347. “Once he has kicked off his boots and peeled off his winter layers, Zachary takes out the book. He turns it over in his hands and then puts it down on his desk. It doesn’t look like anything special, like it contains an entire world, though the same could be said of any book.”

— Erin Morgenstern

348. “Create new stories upon the old ones.”

— Erin Morgenstern

349. “Go away,” his sister says. “I’m going to the circus, if you would care to join me,” Bailey says, his voice dull. He already knows what her answer will be. “No,” she says, as predictable as the dinnertime silence. “How childish,” she adds, shooting him a disdainful glare. Bailey leaves without another word, letting the wind slam the front door behind him. The.”

— Erin Morgenstern

350. “The chocolates are shaped like mice, with almond ears and licorice tails.”

— Erin Morgenstern