Circus Quotes

“What's this?" he inquired, none too pleasantly. "A circus?"
"No, Julius. It's the end of the circus."
"I see. And these are the clowns?"
Foaly's head poked through the doorway.
"Pardon me for interrupting your extended circus metaphor, but what the hell is that?”
― Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl

“At cocktail parties, I played the part of a successful businessman's wife to perfection. I smiled, I made polite chit-chat, and I dressed the part. Denial and rationalization were two of my most effective tools in working my way through our social obligations. I believed that playing the roles of wife and mother were the least I could do to help support Tom's career.
During the day, I was a puzzle with innumerable pieces. One piece made my family a nourishing breakfast. Another piece ferried the kids to school and to soccer practice. A third piece managed to trip to the grocery store. There was also a piece that wanted to sleep for eighteen hours a day and the piece that woke up shaking from yet another nightmare. And there was the piece that attended business functions and actually fooled people into thinking I might have something constructive to offer.
I was a circus performer traversing the tightwire, and I could fall off into a vortex devoid of reality at any moment. There was, and had been for a very long time, an intense sense of despair. A self-deprecating voice inside told me I had no chance of getting better. I lived in an emotional black hole.
p20-21, talking about dissociative identity disorder (formerly multiple personality disorder).”
― Suzie Burke, Wholeness: My Healing Journey from Ritual Abuse

“Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out any quicker than the Christmas spirit”
― Kin Hubbard

“There's only two types of people in the world: the ones that entertain, and the ones that observe.”
― Britney Spears

“Truth-telling is a delicate dance between exposure and imposture, a dance whose steps I’m beginning to learn. When Theodora found me in the scriptorium, I was twenty-one. Still young, but I’d seen enough to feel old.”
― Carol Strickland, The Eagle and the Swan

“The circus is a jealous wench. Indeed that is an understatement. She is a ravening hag who sucks your vitality as a vampire drinks blood – who kills the brightest stars in her crown and will allow no private life for those who serve her; wrecking their homes, ruining their bodies, and destroying the happiness of their loved ones by her insatiable demands. She is all of these things, and yet, I love her as I love nothing else on earth.”
― Henry Ringling North, The Circus Kings: Our Ringling Family Story

“I am further back, surrounded on all sides by wailing men, their faces shiny with tears. Uncle Al promised three dollars and a bottle of Canadian whiskey to the man who puts on the best show. You've never seen such grief-- even the dogs were howling.”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

“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, Jungle, Be Gentle

“I like the circus, because they make a business out of being a clown show. But I hate The Chamber of Commerce, because they make a clown show out of business. In between those two extremes is my duck farm.”
― Jarod Kintz, Music is fluid, and my saxophone overflows when my ducks slosh in the sounds I make in elevators.

“Clowns are respectable only in a circus.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

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

“Gracie leaned out the back, craning her neck as far as she could around the side, trying to catch the wind in her nose and flapping lips. She loved driving, and this car was much faster than the truck which hauled her cage. It was very green here, and the sun flashed and flickered behind the tall trees. There were a million smells along this road, both old and just born. She closed her eyes and huffed, pretending she was flying.”
― Cole Alpaugh, The Bear in a Muddy Tutu

“I'm making money moves. Those moves are delicate and subtle, because I don't want to wake up the duck cuddling on my lap, or spill the cup of coffee I'm holding while I ride my unicycle in this circus called Life.”
― Jarod Kintz, Music is fluid, and my saxophone overflows when my ducks slosh in the sounds I make in elevators.

“Clowns are made by those who made a circus out of life.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“And there was nothing quite like the surprise attack of a snarling black bear, even one missing all forty-two teeth, to urge someone back to work. Waking up with several hundred mud-encrusted, reeking pounds on top of you — your neck suffering a hickey of epic proportions — just pushed the limits on what was tolerable.”
― Cole Alpaugh, The Bear in a Muddy Tutu

“Taking a couple short backup swigs, Flint’s crippling headache started to release its grip, sort of the way he imagined an octopus would release an inedible bowling ball.”
― Cole Alpaugh, The Bear in a Muddy Tutu

“When girls like me, who are relatively smart and pretty, who have something to say, and who have their own points of view, spend every Friday night home alone watching reality TV, this is because all of the guys they might potentially have dated are out with Adventure Barbie.
You know who she is—that girl with the perfectly tousled hair, long legs, and no fat anywhere because she doesn’t eat. She wears super-high heels, which she can walk in perfectly, but she also comes equipped with hiking boots. A guy who finds himself an A.B. is pleased to find out that she is equally at home zip-lining and fine dining. She will go with him to his kickboxing gym and impress all the guys there, and then she will go home and change into a little black dress and five-inch heels. A.B. does not exist in nature; she is her own creation. And no regular girl can match her. A regular girl’s face betrays her panic when she is asked to go rock climbing or cliff diving. A regular girl looks like a drowned rat after an afternoon of white-water rafting. But not Adventure Barbie.”
― J.J. Howard

“The fairy tales told to me in my childhood have a deeper meaning than the facts taught in life.”
― Lenfantvivant

“The circus is the great equalizer. If you’re not smiling, you’re probably dead. Although if you ask my mother, the dead smile too.”
― Jennnifer Sommersby

“Circus has always made him believe that anything is possible. But he knows, too, that it is illusion, that life does not share its boldness, its neat stories.”
― Elizabeth Macneal, Circus of Wonders

“The world is theatre with the different artists playing their own tricks of the trade to attract and get what they want from you.”
― Aiyaz Uddin

“As we’ll see throughout this book, one of the main challenges in making a show comes from repeatedly having to answer the fundamental question: How are decisions made in your group? and Who is responsible for different
tasks?”
― Eric Bates, The Contemporary Circus Handbook: A Guide to Creating, Funding, Producing, Organizing, and Touring Shows for the 21st Century

“Dreaming is easy, hammering out concrete details is hard.”
― Eric Bates, The Contemporary Circus Handbook: A Guide to Creating, Funding, Producing, Organizing, and Touring Shows for the 21st Century

“Limits can be great for inspiring creative solutions.”
― Eric Bates, The Contemporary Circus Handbook: A Guide to Creating, Funding, Producing, Organizing, and Touring Shows for the 21st Century

“If you believe that the show you’re
making will improve the world, there’s nothing saying that your goals and
self-interests and someone else’s goals and interests have to be mutually
exclusive. They can align.”
― Eric Bates, The Contemporary Circus Handbook: A Guide to Creating, Funding, Producing, Organizing, and Touring Shows for the 21st Century

“Every evening the duo gradually elevated themselves from the podium, dismissing gravity.”
― Marin ., Art

“I am being quite reasonable, Mister Cotton, I assure you,’ Charlie said, unable to keep himself from grinning. ‘Mary is accustomed to us. She is more than an elephant, she is a pet, a friend, and a companion. I wouldn’t trust an elephant I don’t know to Barnum and Bailey, let alone a pet, friend, and companion. I’m fully aware of your employers’ liberal use of bull hooks in training. The conditions in which those elephants are crammed together, night after night. Out of love for Mary, I say unreservedly no. I am also aware of the business practices of your employers and know full well the extent of their philanthropic nature. You wouldn’t have turned up here, all false charm and sleazy grin, waving an envelope of cash around, if you didn’t already know Mary was worth a hundred times the value. So, don’t threaten my elephants, firstly, Mister Cotton. And secondly, dare not to insult my intelligence, in my own office. For God’s sake, man.”
― Max Davine, Mighty Mary

“Quality of education and employment is like a politician's promise—sounds amazing during the campaign, but once elected, it vanishes into thin air, leaving us with a circus full of clowns juggling our dimes.”
― Dipti Dhakul

“At the end of the day, it’s a big circus, a great parade. We’re all in it together, bare-assed in clown suits.”
― Robin Brown, Glitter Saints: The Cosmic Art of Forgiveness, a Memoir

“Flowers bloom in secret. Animals build in silence. Humans crave attention.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, These Words Pour Like Rain