And now leave me in peace for a bit! I don't want to answer a string of questions while I am eating. I want to think!" "Good Heavens!" said Pippin. "At breakfast?

What punishments of God are not gifts?

Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.

I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen, of meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been; Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were, with morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair.

Kings built tombs more splendid than the houses of the living and counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry or in high cold towers asking questions of the stars. And so the kingdom of Gondor sank into ruin, the line of kings failed, the white tree withered and the rule of Gondor was given over to lesser men.

A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.

At my age I'm exactly the kind of person who has lived through one of the most quickly changing periods known to history. Surely there could never be in seventy years so much change.