The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2)

by J.R.R. Tolkien

Only Legolas still stepped as lightly as ever, his feet hardly seeming to press the grass, leaving no footprints as he passed; but in the waybread of the Elves he found all the sustenance that he needed, and he could sleep, if sleep it could be called by Men, resting his mind in the strange paths of Elvish dreams, even as he walked open-eyed in the light of this world.

‘Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men.

‘There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark.

They have called me that ever since I said yes to an elder Ent before he had finished his question.

But there, my friends, songs like trees bear fruit only in their own time and their own way: and sometimes they are withered untimely.’

Go where you must go, and hope!

‘One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters. You did rightly.’

No, the burned hand teaches best. After that advice about fire goes to the heart.’

Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.

I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind.

No onslaught more fierce was ever seen in the savage world of beasts, where some desperate small creature armed with little teeth, alone, will spring upon a tower of horn and hide that stands above its fallen mate.