Luke Mohan > Recent Status Updates

“People… like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves.”

“Evil is evil, Stregebor,” said the witcher seriously as he got up. “Lesser, greater, middling, it’s all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I’m not a pious hermit. I haven’t only done only good in my life. But if I’m to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.

“It has to be true love”

“Don’t you think”—he smiled—“that my lack of faith makes such a trance pointless?”
“No I don’t. And do you know why?”…”Because it would be the the first proof I’ve ever heard of that a lack of faith has any kind of power at all.”

The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards. Yet there was naught in this to praise. I had no lure or desire to do other than I have done.

The Men of Númenor were settled far and wide on the shores and seaward regions of the Great Lands, but for the most part they fell into evils and follies. Many became enamores of the Darkness and the black arts; some were given over wholly to idleness and ease, and some fought amongst themselves, until they were conquered in their weakness by the wild men.

I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs.

“I would not snare even an orc with a falsehood,“ said Faramir.

The hobbits breathed deep, and suddenly Sam laughed, for hearts ease not for jest.

‘I am commanded to go to the land of Mordor, and therefore I shall go,’ said Frodo. ‘If there is only one way, then I must take it. What comes after must come.’

‘I had no notion of what I was doing.’
‘Oh yes you had,’ said Gandalf. ’You knew you were behaving wrongly and foolishly; and you told yourself so, though you did not.’

He [Saruman] will not serve, only command.

One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters.

Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy.

…your hands shall flow with gold, and yet over you gold shall have no dominion.

our hands are more often upon the bowstring than upon the harp.

It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope. Well, let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the enemy!

For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so.

We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: knowledge, rule, order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish…

In all the long wars with the Dark Tower treason has ever been our greatest foe.

‘Fruitless did I call the victory of the Last Alliance? Not wholly so, yet it did not achieve its end. Sauron was diminished, but not destroyed. His Ring was lost but not unmade. The Dark Tower was broken, but its foundations were not removed…’

He told of… their eagerness for knowledge, by which Sauron ensnared them.

Don’t adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.

I would dearly like to hear more about Elves; the dark seems to press round so close.

“I am Aragorn son of Arathorn; and if by life or death I can save you, I will.”
“You have frightened me several times tonight, but never in the way that servants of the Enemy would…”

…we like to hear a bit of news, or any story or song you may have in mind.

you [God], who need nobody’s service, can use anybody’s. So I would ask that, among all the millions of souls you cherish, some few, upon the occasion of reading it, may learn to understand you a little, and to love you much.

…partings are unsatisfactory things and perhaps best done without. Please ask our Lord to let me have the gift of perseverance.

The Daily Sketch wanted to send a man to take photographs of me working in my study. I wrote back and said I hadn’t a study and didn’t do any work.