J. R. R. Tolkien Stories Quotations

Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory

There cannot be any 'story' without a fall - all stories are ultimately about the fall - at least not for human minds as we know them and have them.

The Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible in the greatest Fairy Story — and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love.

the association of children and fairy-stories is an accident of our domestic history. Fairy-stories have in the modern lettered world been relegated to the “nursery,” as shabby or old-fashioned furniture is relegated to the play-room, primarily because the adults do not want it, and do not mind if it is misused.

Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.

The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords.

If you're going to have a complicated story you must work to a map; otherwise you'll never make a map of it afterwards.

But you speak of Master Gandalf, as if he was in a story that had come to an end.' 'Yes, we do,' said Pippin sadly. 'The story seems to be going on, but I am afraid Gandalf has fallen out of it.

Then Elrond and Galadriel rode on; for the Third Age was over and the Days of the Rings were passed and an end was come of the story and song of those times.

This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected.

Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?

Don't adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on on the story.

True education is a kind of never-ending story . . .

True education is a kind of never ending story — a matter of continual beginnings, of habitual fresh starts, of persistent newness.

A story must be told or there'll be no story, yet it is the untold stories that are most moving.

The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation - This story begins and ends in joy.