universe, vast universe

“One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It’s one of the oldest urges in mankind. It’s a way of stalling death.”

Though he walked and breathed, and about him living leaves and flowers were stirred by the same cool wind as fanned his face, Frodo felt that he was in a timeless land that did not fade or change or fall into forgetfulness. When he had gone and passed again into the outer world, still Frodo the wanderer from the Shire would walk there, upon the grass among elanor and niphredil in fair Lothlórien.

"Touch me…I lied about wanting to be alone."

“Less has come alive to his senses, his curiosity, his fears, his memory, and entered that separate realm of being in which the outer world does not vanish, not at all, but pricks with painful detail, the province not of the reader or the critic but of that suffering creature trapped behind the looking glass: the writer. For now Less is paying attention.”

He thought how all things glow, glimmer out and fade and fall away and how we must let ourselves be claimed by all passing things, vanishing bit by bit in them, but flourishing in them, too, flaring up in them as light passes over them like motes of dust: this is the slow giving away of oneself, the slow sacrifice, bit by bit. No, he thought, I belong to all things that glow and glimmer out, I am in their life and in their death, I live and die with and in them. I pass in seasons, blow in and out in weathers. I must suffer the death of living lonely things. I blow over my landscape like a wind. I am a part of everything that arrives, announces itself, flourishes, and passes. What, then, shall I proclaim?

in almost every other children's book where the main heroine is swept away to a land of whimsy she's shown having a lovely time; braving dangers occasionally, trying to find her way home, sure, but ultimately delighting in the magic around her. meanwhile alice spends her entire time in wonderland like

look, here’s the thing: alice in wonderland’s enduring fucking charm is that it perfectly captures the vibe of being a very tired and annoyed child who is nonetheless required to play along with adult nonsense.

I'm gonna go ahead and add - the reaction image is barely even a joke. This is the original illustration of her at the Mad Hatter's tea party.

But like a boat with a bent rudder, I kept coming back to the same place—to me myself, and that self wasn't going anywhere. I myself was always right there, waiting for me to return.

The taste of cherries lingered on her own tongue, too, numbing. She had swallowed the pit of the last one she’d eaten, and she could feel it now, growing in her belly, making of her a slowly ripening fruit. She wondered when she'd bloom.

"And think, Satan, what a compliment you pay her, pursuing her soul, lying in wait for it, following it through all its windings, crafty and patient and secret like a gentleman out killing tigers. Her soul—when no one else would give a look at her body even! And they are all so accustomed, so sure of her! They say: 'Dear Lolly! What shall we give her for her birthday this year? Perhaps a hot-water bottle. Or what about a nice black lace scarf? Or a new workbox? Her old one is nearly worn out.' But you say: 'Come here, my bird! I will give you the dangerous black night to stretch your wings in, and poisonous berries to feed on, and a nest of bones and thorns, perched high up in danger where no one can climb to it.'"