A long time gone

He talked to her of the great waste of years between then and now. A long time gone. And it was pointless, he said, to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell, Inman said, for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn't changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You're left only with your scars to mark the void. All you can choose is to go on or not. But if you go on, it's knowing you carry your scars with you. 

~ Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier

Wednesday

Bilbo rushed along the passage, 
very angry, and altogether bewildered 
and bewuthered -- this was
the most awkward Wednesday 
he ever remembered.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (1937) 

The seed

… but the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise. 

 

From Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card

The right words

‘I’ve been studying history,’ Peter said. ‘I’ve been learning things about patterns in human behavior. There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world.’ 

From Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card

It was a lie, of course

Ender nodded. It was a lie, of course, that it wouldn't hurt a bit. But since adults always said it when it was going to hurt, he could count on that statement as an accurate prediction of the future. Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.

When I was barely onto the third page and the tight, pacy narrative was serving up these penetrating insights, I knew I was about to read something really, really good.

Ender's Game: classic military strategy meets dystopian YA speculative fiction. 

I'm loving this book so hard, right now. So, so hard.   

“… and back again” – The Hobbit’s long journey home.

(Warning: Long. Get a cup of tea). 

I was all of ten years old when I read The Hobbit, and since then, my recollection has been muddied by a fabulously overblown three-part movie adaptation. So when a friend waxed lyrical about it recently, I was moved to re-read it. I found myself entranced all over again, but this time for very different reasons.

Regardez bien

Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.*

Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 

Le Petit Prince by lab604 @ Flickr

* This is my secret. It's very simple: you can only see clearly with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye. 

Note to self: dragons*

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."

 The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (1937) 

Smaug, by Eric Fraser

* Actually, make that reptiles, generally. Reptiles that slither close and hiss softly but do not blink, and those that skulk quietly in the long grass. And the ones that spit venom. Especially those.  But not tortoises. Tortoises are usually wise rather than cunning. 

Truth in fiction

“Clary, you’re an artist, like your mother. That means you see the world in ways that other people don’t. It’s your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn’t make you crazy – just different. There’s nothing wrong with being different.”

In City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (2009)