J.D. Sutter > Recent Status Updates

Happy (late) Hobbit Day! Check out My Halfling Character! This app asks you to enter a few personality traits and will create a complete hobbit persona based on you, that will make it feel like you're in the Shire.
https://halflingname.jdsutter.me/
#HobbitDay #HobbitDay2026 #Tolkien

Nice Prydain reference!

"...distinctive click of a shotgun..." "...massive double-barreled rifle..."
Well, which one is it? LOL

Wow. I was aware of some of this, but getting all the details is so eye opening.

“Yes, grief and tragedy could change people down to their bones. But so could loyalty and love.”

“Perhaps all our sorrows are linked like this, a basted stitch of red thread appearing and disappearing on the right and wrong sides of the cloth. Losses, and near losses, whether real or in novels, all part of the same strand. Each new one sadder because of the previous ones.”

https://www.jdsutter.me/2026/08/bookw...

Hmm. Mixed feelings on this one so far...

“If you in the morning
Throw minutes away,
You can't pick them up
In the course of a day.
You may hurry and scurry,
And flurry and worry,
You've lost them forever,
Forever and aye.”

"...people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast it is all a sham... and it won't stand when things come to be turned inside out.”

"Frank seated himself in one of the overstuffed chairs provided for visitors. Across from him hung a portrait of an elderly man who had lifelong bowel problems, if his expression was any indication."

Up to now, the prose has been pretty unremarkable, but this gave me a chuckle. Finally feels like the author is inserting some character into the writing.

“...suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.”
Wow. What a way to end!

"'...it's a flowing so soft and pleasant through the water, p'raps, as makes me think it—I was a thinking... that we can no more see to the bottom of the next few hours, than we can see to the bottom of this river what I catches hold of. Nor yet we can't no more hold their tide than I can hold this. And it's run through my fingers and gone, you see!’ holding up his dripping hand.”

“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts."

“If you can't get to be oncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through going crooked.”

“Trust your luck, Taran Wanderer. But don’t forget to put out your nets!”

"What a man knows isn't important. It's what he is that counts."

“Do you not understand, poor chicken? Like knowledge, truth, and love themselves, the clasp must be given willingly or its power is broken."

"You must be aware of every guile,
for sometimes evil wears a smile
and foul may yet seem fair awhile.
The devil hunts in humble style
and can conceal his pride."

"Neither refuse to give help when it is needed, nor refuse to accept it when it is offered."

"And where he set his mind and heart
his soul flowed in their wake,
for sometimes we ourselves become
the idols that we make!"