Peyton Light > Recent Status Updates

Few artists thrive in solitude, and nothing is more stimulating than the conflict of minds with similar interests.

A society consists of human beings whose behavior as individuals is unpredictable. But if one takes enough of the basic units, then certain laws begin to appear—as was discovered long ago by life insurance companies. No one can tell what individuals will die in a given time—yet the total number of deaths can be predicted with considerable accuracy.

“It is a bitter thought, but you must face it. The planets you may one day possess. But the stars are not for Man.”

Yet among all the distractions and diversions of a planet which now seemed well on the way to becoming one vast playground, there were some who still found time to repeat an ancient and never-answered question:
“Where do we go from here?”

No Utopia can ever give satisfaction to everyone, all the time. As their material conditions improve, men raise their sights and become discontented with power and possessions that once would have seemed beyond their wildest dreams. And even when the external world has granted all it can, there still remain the searchings of the mind and the longings of the heart.

Fifty years is ample time in which to change a world and its people almost beyond recognition. All that is required for the task are a sound knowledge of social engineering, a clear sight of the intended goal—and power.

There were some things that only time could cure. Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded.

“Nothing makes me happy. I like nothing.”

“I don’t want to care. If I care about things, it’ll just be worse, it’ll just be another thing to worry about. It’s less painful if I don’t care.”

“Burn, fuckers. Burn.”

“If you want something, you have the right to take it. If you want to do something, you have the right to do it.”

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Númenor; and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom.”

-Faramir

“Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful!”

Sums up how I feel about this book so far.

Already she seemed to him, as by men of later days Elves still at times are seen: present and yet remote, a living vision of that which has already been left far behind by the flowing streams of Time.

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still, there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

“Don’t adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.”

Even in the light of morning he felt the dark shadow of the tidings that Gandalf had brought.

“My names Bond. James Bond. And I’m the world’s authority on giving up smoking. I do it constantly.”

I find I do not belong here anymore, it is a foreign world.

We know how to do that: to play cards, to swear, and to fight. Not much for twenty years;—and yet too much for twenty years.

Behind all present happiness, there lurks some fear about the future.

“In general, people only ask for advice […] that they may not follow it; or, if they should follow it, that they may have somebody to blame for having given it.”

Nothing passes the time, or shortens the path, like a thought which engrosses all the faculties of an individual’s organization. Our external existence is as a sleep, of which this thought is the dream; and, whilst we are subjected to its influence, time has no longer any measure, nor is there any distance in space: we leave one place, and arrive at another, and are conscious of nothing between.

“A rascal does not laugh in the same manner as an honest man; a hypocrite does not weep with the same kind of tears as a sincere man. All imposture is a mask; and, however well the mask may be made, it may always, with a little attention, be distinguished from the true face.”

“It is a sad thing, in these unhappy times in which we live, that the purest life, the most indisputable virtue, cannot secure a man from disgrace and persecution.”

“You ought not to distrust those who love you!”
“You come quickly to love, sir.”
“It is because love has come quickly on me, and for the first time.”

“When either way may lead to evil, of what worth is choice?”

“A king is only as good as the poorest man under his rule.”

“Kingdoms need kings, and without them they are nothing but empty land inviting a conqueror’s spears.”

“I know I have gained Christ and through His blessing I have gained the whole world too, but for what I have lost, for what we have all lost, there is no end to the reckoning. We lost everything.”

“People talk about beautiful friendships between two persons of the same sex. What is the best of that sort, as compared with the friendship of man and wife, where the best impulses and highest ideals of both are the same? There is no place for comparison between the two friendships; the one earthly, the other divine.”