Carnivals Quotes

“When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets," Papa would say, "she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing.”
― Katherine Dunn, Geek Love

“It's difficult to spend time in any carnival or amusement park and not realize that a repressed fear of death may be the one emotion that is constant in the human heart even if, most of the time, it is confined to the unconscious as we go about our business. Thrill rides offer us a chance to acknowledge our ever-present dread, to release the tension that arises from repression of it, and to subtly delude ourselves with the illusion of invulnerability that surviving the Big Drop can provide.”
― Dean Koontz, Saint Odd

“He wanted a home. He wanted a family. He wanted to have friends. But none of those things were realistic. At least not until he came to Mineral Wells. Right now Carter was just trying to hold on to the happiness he'd found since meeting Mr. Vernon the previous night.
"To belong, okay??" Carter snapped. He felt tears in his eyes, but he wasn't sure. Quickly, he wiped at them. "You don't know what it's like to be alone.”
― Neil Patrick Harris, The Magic Misfits

“For years I looked for you. I never gave up, but I never imagined that fate would bring you to Mineral Wells."
"Not fate," Leila said. "Magic."
Magic, fate, or coincidence. Carter wasn't sure which was which anymore.”
― Neil Patrick Harris, The Magic Misfits

“A tired man lay down his head
in a dusty room so dim,
and for so long his wife did shake
and yell to waken him.

Meanwhile his thoughts, his dreams, did stir
of sandy, red bullfights,
of powder-blasts in the air
and carnival delights.

Yet still his wife was in despair
in a dusty room so dim,
for she knew death was a whore
not far from tempting him.”
― Roman Payne

“Here in these circuses and carnivals we all love each other with our oddities and queernesses.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“But this dagger – this was her first. Her favorite. The same one that had sliced off the boy’s toe on the beach and sent it rolling through the sand.”
― Leslie Parry, Church of Marvels

“She had seen it done. Wherever they glittered in the afterlife – flying among the high rafters of heaven, swimming with her mother in an undersea cave – she hoped the tigers had known it, and roared.”
― Leslie Parry, Church of Marvels

“The man standing in the booth placing the tickets into her hands for the fun-house loomed largely in front of her with arms comprised of iron muscle. She remembered the gray cataract that covered over one of his eyes and the terrified feeling it gave her. She had been too young to understand the malady. To her; his eye looked as though it belonged to a creature from the sea. A frightening creature composed of reptilian and fish like attributes, which would pull unsuspecting prey underneath the darkest oceans. The smile on his face, with the crooked teeth, the cigar, contrasting with the bald head and unshaven face increased her sense of panic.”
― Jaime Allison Parker, River at the World's Dawn

“And he said...

...carnivals will offer you rides which will excite the life that is within you.”
― Anthony T. Hincks