I really enjoy the Lord Of The Rings books. The first time I read them was backstage at a show I was working on in Cleveland. Once I started, I couldn’t stop.

I was reading before the show, backstage during the show, and pretty much non stop when I was home at my apartment. I plowed through them! I’m not a particular fan of fantasy writing, but I love the world he created, and the themes of friendship and love.

All this talk about it makes me want to read them again. My first time reading I borrowed the books from a coworker. If I want to reread them now it would be easy. The complete collection was the first book I purchased when I got my kindle.

Here are some quotes I have highlighted:

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

“Not all those who wander are lost.”

“You can trust us to stick with you through thick and thin–to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours–closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word.”

“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass.”

“No sign of age was upon them, unless it were in the depths of their eyes; for these were keen as lances in the starlight, and yet profound, the wells of deep memory.”

‘What do you fear, lady?’ he asked. ‘A cage,’ she said. ‘To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.’

“And never in after years could he hear a horn blown in the distance without tears starting in his eyes.”

What’s Tomorrow?

March 26

• National Spinach Day
• National Nougat Day