Erin Morgenstern Quotes

95 Sourced Quotes

You prefer not to see the gears of the clock, as to better tell time.

Erin Morgenstern
This is not magic. This is the way the world is, only very few people take the time to stop and note it.

Erin Morgenstern
Better to have a single perfect diamond than a sack of flawed stones.

Erin Morgenstern
How are you managing to keep everyone from aging? Celia asks after a while. Very carefully, Marco answers.

Erin Morgenstern
He turns and walks away, moving so quickly that the candle flames shiver with the motion of the air. I miss you, Isobel says as he leaves, but the sentiment is crushed by the clatter of the beaded curtain falling closed behind him.

Erin Morgenstern
Are we going to discuss whatever it is you are here to discuss instead of dancing around it? he asks. I was never a particularly good dancer.

Erin Morgenstern
"You look like a ghost," Bailey says. He can think of no better way to describe it. "You appear the same way to me, so which of us is real?"

Erin Morgenstern
It is a matter of perspective, the difference between opponent and partner," Tsukiko says. "You step to the side and the same person can be either or both or something else entirely. It is difficult to know which face is true.

Erin Morgenstern
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.

Erin Morgenstern
Though I have seen a great deal of the sights, traveled a number of the available paths, there are always corners that remain unexplored, doors that remain unopened.

Erin Morgenstern
This is, in part, why there is less magic in the world today. Magic is secret and secrets are magic, after all, and years upon years of teaching and sharing magic and worse. Writing it down in fancy books that get all dusty with age has lessened it, removed its power bit by bit.

Erin Morgenstern
The night that seemed endless hours before is now slipping through your fingers, ticking by as it falls into the past and pushes you towards the future.

Erin Morgenstern
Her father picks different names for her as they change locales, but he uses Miranda often, presumably because he knows how much it annoys her.

Erin Morgenstern
Natural talent is a questionable phenomenon. Inclination perhaps, but innate ability is extremely rare.

Erin Morgenstern
Each of them always gravitating toward the other. Yet still they do not touch.

Erin Morgenstern
We lead strange lives, chasing our dreams around from place to place.

Erin Morgenstern
Old stories have a habit of being told and retold and changed. Each subsequent storyteller puts his or her mark upon it. Whatever truth the story once had is buried in bias and embellishment. The reasons do not matter as much as the story itself.

Erin Morgenstern
And before he can tell her to tell Widget goodbye for him if need be, she leans forward and kisses him, not on the cheek, as she has a handful of times before, but on the lips, and Bailey knows in that moment that he will follow her anywhere.

Erin Morgenstern
I do not like sitting idly by when something clearly isn't right. I feel... not trapped but something like it, and I don't know what to about.

Erin Morgenstern
Is it not that bad to be trapped somewhere, then? Depending on where you're trapped?" "I suppose it depends on how much you like the place you're trapped in," Widget says. "And how much you like whoever you're stuck there with," Poppet adds, kicking his black boot with her white one.

Erin Morgenstern
He reads histories and mythologies and fairy tales, wondering why it seems that only girls are ever swept away from their mundane lives on farms by knights or princes or wolves. It strikes him as unfair to not have the same fanciful opportunity himself. And he is not in the position to do any rescuing of his own.

Erin Morgenstern
Have you tried the cinnamon things?" Poppet asks. "They're rather new. What are they called, Widge?" "Fantastically delicious cinnamon things?

Erin Morgenstern
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
That's the beauty of it. Have you seen the contraptions these magicians build to accomplish the most mundane feats? They are a bunch of fish covered in feathers trying to convince the public they can fly, I am simply a bird in their midst.

Erin Morgenstern
She 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 Morgenstern
I've missed you, he whispers softly. The air between them is electric as he leans in, gently brushing his lips against her neck. In the next room, the guests complain about the sudden increase in temperature. Fans are drawn from colorful bags, fluttering like tropical birds.

Erin Morgenstern
I have read for countless people on innumerable subjects and the most difficult thing to understand within the cards is always the timing. 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
People don't pay much attention to anything unless you give them reason to

Erin Morgenstern
So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours.

Erin Morgenstern
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.

Erin Morgenstern