"Today, of course, we have nearly perfect ways to kill time in the present and in our memory in one fell swoop, as every television viewer knows from experience.  While you stare at the tube and surf through the channels, the stream of rapidly changing images engages your senses, and the evening flies by.  But if you try to recall these hours a few days later, they seem to have vanished without a trace: The TV programs meant so little to you that your brain retained none of what you saw.  The images with which it was bombarded killed the time in the present, and their inconsequentiality erased the time when you thought about it afterward.

This effect of television and other media is often overlooked: Not only do they rob us of time that might be spent in a more meaningful pursuit, but they also create a zone devoid of memory.  We might even say that electronic entertainment shortens our lives.

Even more dramatic is the "television paradox," Jena sociologist Hartmut Rosa's name for the way time shrinks when you play a video game.  Games of that sort are designed to grab your attention.  You don't notice how quickly the hours go by until you realize you're hungry--or when your partner complains about how much time you've been wasting.  But apart from a few isolated images, or a little thrill of achievement when you scored points, you come away with no memories.  It is as though a black hole had swallowed up this piece of your life."

"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way." - Frodo, The Fellowship of the Ring, "The Council of Elrond."

A deadly sword, a healing hand,

a back that bent beneath the load;

a trumpet-voice, a burning brand,

a weary pilgrim on the road.

A lord of wisdom throned he sat,

swift in anger, quick to laugh;

an old man in a battered hat

who leaned upon a thorny staff.

He stood upon the bridge alone

and Fire and Shadow both defied;

his staff was broken on the stone,

in Khazad-dûm his wisdom died.

Frodo mourning the loss of Gandalf.  The Fellowship of the Ring, "The Mirror of Galadriel."

How Shelob came there, flying from ruin, no tale tells, for out of the Dark Years few tales have come.  But still she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dûr; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Evles and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness.  Far and wide her lesser broods, bastards of the miserable mates, her own offspring, that she slew, spread from glen to glen, from the Ephel Dúath to the eastern hills, to Dol Duldur and the fastnesses of Mirkwood.  But none could rival her, Shelob the Great, last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world.

The Two Towers, "Shelob's Lair"

Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away.  Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it.  After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them.  Éomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first éored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Théoden could not be overtaken.  Fey he seemed, or the battle fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Oromë the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young.  His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed.  For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea;  and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them.  And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

"Don't orcs eat, and don't they drink?  Or do they just live on foul air and poison?"

"No, they eat and drink, Sam.  The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own.  I don't think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them; and if they are to live at all, they have to live like other living creatures."

- The Return of the King, "The Tower of Cirith Ungol"

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while.  The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him.  For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.

"I met a lot of things along the way that astonished me.  Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree.  Strider sitting in the corner of the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than Frodo did.  The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlórien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there."

"The moment men cease to pull against it [the Catholic Church] they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it. But when that affection has passed a certain point it begins to take on the tragic and menacing grandeur of a great love affair. The man has exactly the same sense of having committed or compromised himself; of having been in a sense entrapped, even if he is glad to be entrapped."