“They had a table near the rail round the huge floor. Bond was spellbound. He found many of the girls very beautiful. The music hammered its way into his pulse until he almost forgot what he was there for.”

“THE SHARPSHOOTER AT GETTYSBURGAs he grew more and more parched, waiting near the Emmitsburg Road that reached up to Gettysburg, Jake thought of peaches and water, until he saw movement across the way, near a pile of wooden fence rails. Rebel skirmishers had been using those rails as cover all morning. Jake set the rear trigger of his Sharps. He prepared to barely caress its forward trigger, the hair trigger, as he waited for a chance to kill someone Jake knew, in all likelihood, was not so different from himself.”

“...he felt the whole vision turn to darkness and his very feet give way. His head went round; he was going; he had gone.”

“Frodo drew the Ring out of his pocket again and looked at it. It now appeared plain and smooth, without mark or device that he could see. The gold looked very fair and pure, and Frodo thought how rich and beautiful was its colour, how perfect was its roundness. It was an admirable thing and altogether precious. When he took it out he had intended to fling it from him into the very hottest part of the fire. But he found now that he could not do so, not without a great struggle. He weighed the Ring in his hand, hesitating and forcing himself to remember all that Gandalf had told him; and then with an effort of will he made a movement, as if to cast it away - but he found that he had put it back in his pocket.”

“That’s when he’d run and run until he was nothing more than two feet and a pair of lungs, until he coughed blood and stank of sweat and forgot for an hour or two everything that he was and what he had to do and the people who’d get hurt along the way.”

“Weed Rises to his feet. "Nature," he says softly, "makes so many beautiful things. But I did not know until you that nature could make a girl so beautiful.”