Jerry

“Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“Most people now are looking for a better place, which means that a lot of them will end up in a worse one. I think this is what Nathan learned from his time in the army and the war. He saw a lot of places, and he came home. I think he gave up the idea that there is a better place somewhere else.

There is no “better place” than this, not in this world. And it is by the place we’ve got, and our love for it and our keeping of it, that this world is joined to Heaven.”
― Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

“Chauntecleer was crowing one of his “Occasional Crows,” a dirge: “The Lord alone has immortality. The God of all comfort comforts us in our tribulations. Therefore comfort one another, My dear ones, By the comfort which we ourselves have received from God.”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., The Second Book of the Dun Cow: Lamentations

“PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way.

GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.

PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what?

GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad.

GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings