“Each person has his own destiny and possesses the characteristics required to fulfill that destiny.”

Paul Adirex, Mekong

“Everyone’s life is controlled by destiny, which is the consequence of karma in one’s past lives and present life.”

Paul Adirex, Mekong

“If you believe strongly in something, you can make it happen.”

Paul Adirex, Mekong

“Elves of any kind are strange folk.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“They always wished to talk to everything, the old Elves did.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“Keen are the eyes of the Elves.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“Elves know a lot and are wondrous folk for news, and know what is going on among the peoples of the land, as quick as water flows, or quicker.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“The Sea Gypsies were nomadic people who roamed the sea in their dugout canoes from island to island ranging from Indonesia to Burma. The three groups of Sea Gypsies who populated several islands in Thailand’s Andaman Sea were called Urak Lawoi, Moken, and Moklen. The Urak Lawoi group had settled on Adang and Lipe while the other two groups lived on Phuket and also on the Surin islands near the Burmese border. The Urak Lawoi, who numbered about six hundred on Lipe, were governed by a village chief who was under the administration of the governor of Satun province. Although the Sea Gypsies had their own spoken language, they attended a school established on Lipe by the Thai Ministry of Education. There they learned from Thai teachers to speak, read, and write Thai.”

Paul Adirex, The King Kong Effect

“A box without hinges, key, or lid,

Yet golden treasure inside is hid.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“There it is: dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots, some are not.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“Dwarves can make a fire almost anywhere out of almost anything, wind or no wind.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“Everyone must do his duty.”

Eric Van Lustbader, The Ninja

“We all have our jobs.”

Harold Robbins, The Piranhas

“Duty is the essence of life, Nicholas. It is the only thing over which death has no dominion. It is true immortality.”

Eric Van Lustbader, The Ninja

“To abandon duty is to destroy that which makes any individual unique and capable of prodigious feats.”

Eric Van Lustbader, The Ninja

“A drunken man walks with great difficulty but he can run with no trouble at all. The quickened action gives him balance, and the momentum he gets holds him in the balance and in the road.”

James Stephens, The Wolf

“If the young cannot harbor great dreams in their souls, who can?”

Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi – Book One: The Way of the Samurai

“Dreams aren’t real.”

Bethany Campbell, Hear No Evil

“When one door closes, another opens… into another room, another space, other happenings. There are many doors to open and close in our lives. Some doors we leave ajar, when we hope and plan to return. Some doors are slammed shut decisively – “No more of that!” Some are closed regretfully, softly – “It was good, but it is over.” Departures entail arrivals somewhere else. Closing a door, leaving it behind, means opening onto new vistas and ventures, new possibilities, new incentives.”

Helen Nearing, When One Door Opens

“Boys will be boys, Jacques. They have high spirits. Oh, once in a while they get carried away but it’s good to see all that energy and zeal and enthusiasm.”

Robert Cormier, The Chocolate War