Epigraphs are like little appetizers to the great entrée of a story. They illuminate important aspects of the story, and they get us headed in the right direction.
Take my advice and live for a long long time, because the maddest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die. – Cervantes, Don Quixote
Hope is the thing with feathers. – Emily Dickinson
It's a small world after all. – Walt Disney
What's up with the epigraph?
It almost feels like this whole book could've been an exercise to see if Libba Bray could take these three seemingly unrelated quotes and turn them into a wildly entertaining novel. If it was, then bravo, Ms. Bray—mission accomplished.
To break it down: The story parallels Don Quixote in enough ways to dedicate an entire unit to their similarities. In the beginning, Cam is reading the epic tale in school, and then later, bits and pieces of it surface in his hallucinations as if little Cervantes gems have embedded themselves into his subconscious. The epigraph quote is particularly relevant because Cam's mission, which can easily be analogous to tilting at windmills, is a desperate, last-ditch attempt at not letting himself die… while going mad. Nice.
As for the "small world" quote, it's pretty easy to place within the novel. Cam almost drowned at the age of five when he jumped off the Small World ride at Disney, giving him his happiest memory to date (yikes) and its imagery pops up in various ways throughout the story.
On a deeper level, though, its message can be seen in the fact that throughout his travels Cam encounters people and strange coincidences that help to reiterate the fact that nothing happens in complete isolation. It's a small world after all, yo, and elements from throughout Cam's life converge in the world of his imagination.
We also think its no small coincidence that the thing with feathers—in this case a person—is the character who offers Cam the most hope. Boom. Nailed it. For more on Dulcie, though, be sure to swing by the "Characters" section, and to really dig into the whole feather-hope connection hop on over to the "Symbols" section while you're at it.