I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.
I flattered myself that at moments you had feelings for me other than contempt, but even were that true, they would make but a thin gruel beside the feast of your other, greater desires. And yet my heart is buried with you in the strange soil of the mortal world, as it was drowned with you in the cold waters of the undersea. It was yours before I could ever admit it, and yours it shall ever remain.
“That’s life. You’re always making decisions, taking paths that lead you away from the rest before you can see where they end. Maybe that’s why we as a species love stories so much. All those chances for do-overs, opportunities to live the lives we’ll never have.”
It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. 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. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
the lord of the rings: the two towers (2002) dir. peter jackson
A house for Tate and Narnie and Jude and Fitz and for their families. A home to back to every day of their lives. Where they would all belong or long to be. A place on the Jellicoe Road.
It’s always been fascinating to me how things can be simultaneously true and false, how people can be good and bad all in one, how someone can love you in a way that is beautifully selfless while serving themselves ruthlessly.
-seven husbands of evelyn hugo, taylor jenkins ried
“If he can convince her of one thing in his life, let it be this: A life beyond that house, beyond all the ghosts that haunt it, is a dream worth believing in. One worth trying for.”
with a mocking smile, he placed one hand upon my shoulder and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying as he did so: “first, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. you may as well be quiet; it is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have appeased my thirst!” i was bewildered, and, strangely enough, i did not want to hinder him. i suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that such is, when his touch is on his victim.
