#circus

Hector wished suddenly that leaving the circus was as easy as joining. He didn't fancy the ghost of Harvey Burfoot hunting him down and passing judgement on him. Troupe mythology varied on the details – some said he had the ability to stop your heart with just a stare, others that he strangled you with corporeal hands that grew stronger as he drained your life-force. Either way, the Law was that nobody left; to leave was death; and Hector didn't hate himself that much yet. ↗

— Jackie Trippier Holt

#fantasy #freaks #death

I probably worked every single entertainment medium, including some that don't exist. I worked the circus, carnival, I had my own medicine show, I worked 18 years of radio. ↗

— Al Lewis

#circus #entertainment #every #exist #had

Rock 'n' roll is like a circus today. ↗

— Ray Manzarek

#like #rock #roll #today

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. ↗

— H. L. Mencken

#art #cage #circus #democracy #monkey

A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in. ↗

— H. L. Mencken

#best #better #campaign #circus #couple

Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy the Church. America Hollywood. ↗

— Erica Jong

#church #circus #country #deserves #every

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. ↗

— Eric Morgenstern

#pain #the-night-circus #beauty

It was a year ago today your daughter went missing.’ Bagg had closed his eyes, feeling the death going on inside. ↗

— Cole Alpaugh

#circus #death #literary-fiction #love #death

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

#habits #reasons #stories #the-night-circus #truth

For several thousand years man has been in contact with animals whose character and habits have been deformed by domestication. He has ended by believing that he understands them. All he means by this is that he is able to rely on certain reflex actions which he himself has implanted in them. He will flatter himself at times on the grasp of animal psychology which has brought him the love of the dog and the purr of the cat; and on the strength of such assumptions he approaches the beasts of the jungle. The old tag about nature being an open book is just not true. What nature offers on a first examination may appear to be simple but it is never as simple as it appears. ↗

— Hans Brick

#circus #training #zoo #love