Missy Litton

“What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.”
― Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“This is not to say that joy is a compensation for loss, but that each of them, joy and loss, exists in its own right and must be recognised for what it is... So joy can be joy and sorrow can be sorrow, with neither of them casting either light or shadow on the other.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Lila

“Despair, or folly?' said Gandalf. 'It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope. Well, let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy! For he is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of reckoning.'
'At least for a while,' said Elrond. 'The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strenght nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“He will wipe the tears from all faces.' It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required”
― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead