Eowyn:

For all of us there is a place, the place our heart yearns for, the place where we belong. For my Lord, though he loves our little land, the only true homecoming is the road to the City and up to the White Tower. For me it used to be the fields of Rohan and the grass-scented air that blows around Meduseld in spring; even now, the faintest ghost of that scent will bring tears to my eyes, but for long years my home has been wherever my Lord is, and anywhere else is grey and empty and a wilderness of dragging time. For my children it is Emyn Arnen: the silver of the Great River and the song of the boatmen rowing them home, and the scent of flowers and the echo of elven-song in its deep woods. For the Elves, they say, all those places are one place, the realm of bliss beyond the Bent Seas to which we Men can never come. To some it is a memory, but even those who have never seen it know that all other places are exile. More than once I have seen the shadow of that exile in the face of Legolas, but he never speaks of it, and in a moment he will be merry again so that I almost doubt what I have seen.

When my son was a small child, he became fascinated by the stories of Aman, and of those who went there and returned, or did not return. Once, being curious without kindness as small children are, he asked the Queen if she was sorry that she could never now come there. She smiled and shook her head, and said that her choice was made long ago; but her eyes met mine over my son’s head, and the anguish I saw in them haunts me yet.