How tempting it is to lose myself in you.
When one’s all life is about absolute and constant control, when one has to know oneself “inside and out, everything kept in perfect order," it is rather tempting to let everything go. For Celia, whose life has never really belonged to her, to let go and to lose herself in Marco is the biggest dream. There is a belief here that human endurance is immeasurable: everything is possible for a willing heart. Celia’s problem is that her heart is not willing; because of this, her own inborn abilities and strengths become her burden. Although the idea of losing oneself in someone else is “tempting,” Celia, like many other people, can’t always follow her own wishes.
The future is never set in stone, remember that.
Although this quote belongs to Isobel, it is about Bailey. The boy enters the tent of the fortune-teller with a heart full of worries and uncertainty, for he doesn’t know what to do in the future. He could be a farmer or enter a college, but neither field work nor study really strikes his fancy. Considering only two options, he has never really thought that “the future is never set in stone,” and that, therefore, there is always another way out. Eventually, not only Bailey but also Marco and Celia manage to prove that there is always a chance to change everything for better.
The past stays on you the way powdered sugar stays on your fingers.
Our past is an inseparable part of our personalities: it is next to impossible to get rid of it completely. No matter how hard one tries to wipe it off, it stays on one “the way powdered sugar stays on your fingers.” One’s past often determines one's motives in the future. A reader can clearly see how the characters’ past influences them, making them do things they don’t really want to do. For instance, if Celia’s father hadn't lost the last game, there would have been a chance that he wouldn’t have wanted to wager his own child. If Tsukiko hadn't lost the love of her life during the last game, she wouldn’t have understood Celia and Marco’s despair. Everyone in the story has a past that haunts him or her.
I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark.
There are many things an average person can’t comprehend. In this case, there are only two possible ways out of this situation: one can pry, or one can “prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark.” According to Friedrick Thiessen, not everything in this world should be explained: there is always a place for mystery. An ability to appreciate mysteries is more common among children than among adults, for children typically don’t bother themselves with logic and universal laws. Unlike Friedrick, who knows how to appreciate the dark, many other characters are rather scared of "the dark." Acceptance of the idea that the world is more complex than one could imagine helps those such as Friedrick to maintain sanity.
Many patrons only glance at them before moving on, but the longer you watch, the more you can detect the subtlest of motions. The change in the curve of a hand as it hovers near an arm. The shifting angle of a perfectly balanced leg. Each of them always gravitating toward the other. Yet still they do not touch.
The living statues that the "you" of the narration watches are a metaphor for Marco, Celia, and the situation they find themselves in. Put into a competition they didn't sign up for, forced to endure hard practices and straitened emotional relationships, the two of them are nearly completely alone until the glimpse each other. As soon as they fall in love, though, the nature of the competition rears its ugly head and the two are kept apart: they are always reaching for each other but never fully connecting due to the potential dangers and sorrows.
Some seek him out, and the meetings and dinners that follow herald the formation of a kind of club, a society of lovers of the circus.
Morgenstern created the rêveurs as an homage to the fans of Sleep No More, the famed New York theater experience. Sleep No More had fiercely dedicated fans who went often and shared their stories with each other. This community that sprung up organically was a meaningful one to Morgenstern and led her to do the same for her circus. Both play and circus are experiences that beg to be shared with others. This is a very human thing, as our desire to be with like-minded people and chronicle our experiences is universal.
We are all involved in your game, and it seems we are not as easily repaired as teacups.
The cracks in the circus—or, rather, in the circus organizers—reveal themselves fairly early on and only worsen. Celia created no safeguards, and Marco only made them for the people directly involved. Thus, Chandresh, Barris, Lainie, Tara, Mme. Padva, and all other patrons (such as Herr Thiessen and Bailey) are not protected from the tensions the competition causes. After her sister dies as a result of getting too close to things she shouldn't have, Lainie demands the truth and finally gets most of it from Celia. In this succinct quote, she lets Celia know definitively that people's lives are at stake and that no matter what Celia does moving forward, she should be aware of this.
When you drop it in the pool to join the rest of the stones, you feel lighter. As though you have released something more than a smooth piece of rock.
In the interstitial chapters, Morgenstern writes in the second person to give readers a better impression of what it would have been like to actually go through the circus. She describes numerous tents and shows, and she creates a sense of wonder and charm. Her reader gets to experience things firsthand rather through Celia, Marco, or even Bailey, so he or she comes to know just how important the circus actually is. These sections are also outside of time in the sense that we have no idea when the "you" is actually there.
"Please, no Shakespeare."
"I am haunted by the ghost of my father, I think that should allow me to quote Hamlet as much as I please."
Morgenstern is heavily influenced by Shakespeare, particularly Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and The Tempest. Here, she references Shakespeare's masterpiece, in which the ghost of a father haunts his tortured son. It is an apt comparison for Celia to make, for she is growing more and more vexed at her father's presence. Hector does not like this reference, but he is responsible for the ubiquity of Shakespeare in his daughter's life: after all, he named himself Prospero and joked about calling her Miranda. The intertextual motif in the novel helps universalize aspects of Morgenstern's book and illuminate the way books from different eras "talk" to each other and open new avenues of thought for readers.
She does not see the train.
In a brief and startling moment, Tara Burgess is wiped out of existence. Her concerns with the circus had been growing, and all of her conversations were getting her nowhere. Her talk with A.H. was particularly disconcerting, as he answered nothing, made her feel like she was strange for even thinking there was anything wrong, and made her forget the specifics of why she even wanted to see him. When she glimpsed him arguing with the figure whom we know to be Prospero, her fate was almost certainly sealed. The narrator does not explicitly say that the magicians did anything to her, but Tsukiko's comments to Isobel at the funeral seem to imply their involvement.
