enamorials

“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Home is behind, the world ahead,
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadows to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight.
Then world behind and home ahead,
We'll wander back and home to bed.
Mist and twilight, cloud and shade,
Away shall fade! Away shall fade!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“I remembered the moment I read a novel for the first time.

The texture of the soft paper touching my fingertips. The black letters blooming on a white field. The texture of the page I folded with my hands.

「 It isn’t important to read the letters. The important thing is where the letters lead you. 」

My mother, who loved books, used to say this. At least for me, it wasn’t just a saying.

The gaps in the black print. My own little snow garden lay in between the letters. This space, which was too small for someone to go into, was a perfect place for a child who liked to hide. Every time a pleasant sound was heard, the letters stacked up like snow.

In it, I became a hero. I had adventures, loved and dreamt. Thus, I read, read and read again.

I remembered the first time I was about to finish a book. It was like being deprived of the world.

The protagonist and supporting characters walked off with the sentence ‘They lived happily ever after’ and I was left alone at the end of the story. In my vanity and sense of betrayal, my young self struggled because I couldn’t stand the loneliness.

「This… is the end? 」

Perhaps it was similar to learning about death. For the first time, I realized that something was finite.”
― Singshong, 전지적 독자 시점 1 [Jeonjijeog Dogja Sijeom 1]

“I'll be writing as long as I can hold a pen in my curled, crimped arthritic hands and then I'll dictate it, if it comes to that. They'll have to pry my pen out of my cold, dead fingers - and even then, I'll fight 'em for it. Guaranteed.”
― Wanda Lea Brayton