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.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before…
- Edgar Allan Poe
A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
- Oscar Wilde
What's up with the epigraph?
The quotes that introduce the reader to The Raven Boys are both pretty eerie and touch on the tortured nature of a person's dreams. This makes sense because the main characters in the novel all deal with their own inner demons, which often appear to them in dreams. For Blue, it's knowing that she's destined to kill her true love if she kisses him; for Gansey, it's his vision about how he was allowed to live in order to find Glendower; and Whelk is constantly haunted by dreams of the ley lines, and how he killed his best friend in order to carry out the ritual.