In Every Walk With Nature One Receives Far More Than He Seeks.

It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

"Sorry! I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not Today. Good morning! But please come to tea – any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Good bye!" 

It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Out of the trees wild people stepped forth...

Birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.

When much in the Woods as a little girl, I was told that the Snake would bite me, that I might pick a poisonous flower, or Goblins kidnap me, but I went along and met no one but Angels

Emily Dickinson, from a letter to T. W. Higginson, August 1862

Forests are like churches, hallowed places. There's a stillness about them, a sort of reverence.

“Farewell," they cried, "Wherever you fare till your eyries receive you at the journey's end!" That is the polite thing to say among eagles." "May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks," answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply.

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.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring 

“Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”