J. R. R. Tolkien Quotations | Page 2

My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs).

And here he was, a little halfling from the Shire, a simple hobbit of the quiet countryside, expected to find a way where the great ones could not go, or dared not go. It was an evil fate.

Come, Mr. Frodo!' he cried. 'I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you and it as well. So up you get! Come on, Mr. Frodo dear! Sam will give you a ride. Just tell him where to go, and he'll go

All my own perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded upon Our Lady.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.

All that is gold does not glitter.

I am dreading the publication, for it will be impossible not to mind what is said. I have exposed my heart to be shot at.

evil labours with vast power and perpetual success - in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in.

For if joyful is the fountain that rises in the sun, its springs are in the wells of sorrow unfathomable at the foundations of the Earth.

Such is of the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.

He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.

My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!

Adventures are not all pony-rides in May-sunshine.

To think I should have lived to be goodmorninged by Belladonna Took's son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!

A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo's heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering. All these thoughts passed in a flash of a second. He trembled. And then quite suddenly in another flash, as if lifted by a new strength and resolve, he leaped.

Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.

There is no ship now that can bear me hence

PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way. GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it. PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what? GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise. PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad. GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.

I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.

Life is rather above the measure of us all (save for a very few perhaps). We all need literature that is above our measure--though we may not have sufficient energy for it all the time.

It gives me great pleasure, a good name. I always in writing start with a name. Give me a name and it produces a story, not the other way about normally.

Those were happier days, when there was still close friendship at times between folk of different race, even between Dwarves and Elves.' It was not the fault of the Dwarves that the friendship waned,' said Gimli. I have not heard that it was the fault of the Elves,' said Legolas. I have heard both,' said Gandalf[.]

There are truths, that are beyond us, transcendent truths, about beauty, truth, honor, etc. There are truths that man knows exist, but they cannot be seen - they are immaterial, but no less real, to us. It is only through the language of myth that we can speak of these truths.

But how powerful, how stimulating to the very faculty that produced it, was the invention of the adjective. ... The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift, also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water. If it could do the one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's power.

I have an unsatisfied desire to shoot well with a bow.

May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks.

We don't want any adventures here! You might try over the Hill or Across the Water.

Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory

We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.

If you find that not many of the things you asked for have come, and not perhaps quite so many as sometimes, remember that this Christmas all over the world there are a terrible number of poor and starving people.

His rage passes description - the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted.

And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge.

It needs but one foe to breed a war, and those who have not swords can still die upon them.

Curse us and crush us, my precious is lost!

Fear nothing! Have peace until the morning! Heed no nightly noises!

The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.

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.

For the less even as for the greater there is some deed that he may accomplish but once only; and in that deed his heart shall rest.

grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mould of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps.

Rover did not know in the least where the moon's path led to, and at present he was much too frightened and excited to ask, and anyway he was beginning to get used to extraordinary things happening to him.

Eomer said, 'How is a man to judge what to do in such times?' As he has ever judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and evil have not changed since yesteryear, nor are they one thing among Elves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.

No dragon can resist the fascination of riddling talk and of wasting time trying to understand it.

I want to be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.

I am old, Gandalf. I don't look it, but I am beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts. Well-preserved indeed! Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can't be right. I need a change, or something.

For myself, I find I become less cynical rather than more--remembering my own sins and follies; and realize that men's hearts are not often as bad as their acts, and very seldom as bad as their words.

Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light through whom is splintered from a single White to many hues, and endlessly combined in living shapes that move from mind to mind. Though all the crannies of the world we filled with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build Gods and their houses out of dark and light, and sowed the seed of dragons, 'twas our right (used or misused). The right has not decayed. We make still by the law in which we're made.

We may stand, if only on one leg, or at least be left still upon our knees.

For so sworn good or evil an oath may not be broken and it shall pursue oathkeeper and oathbreaker to the world's end.

I will not give you counsel, saying do this, or do that. For not in doing or contriving, nor in choosing between this course and another, can I avail; but only in knowing what was and is, and in part also what shall be.

his old life lay behind in the mists, dark adventure lay in front.

It seemed like all the way to tomorrow and over it to the days beyond.

If people were in the habit of refering to 'King George's council, Winston and his gang,' it would go a long way to clearing thought, and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy.

American English is essentially English after having been wiped off with a dirty sponge.

Tears unnumbered ye shall shed....

He was kindhearted, in a way. You know the sort of kind heart: it made him uncomfortable more often than it made him do anything; and even when he did anything, it did not prevent him from grumbling, losing his temper and swearing (mostly to himself).

Hobbits delighted in such things, if they were accurate; they liked to have books filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions.

Cold be hand and heart and bone, and cold be sleep under stone: never more to wake on stony bed, never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead. In the black wind the stars shall die, and still on gold here let them lie, till the dark lord lifts his hand over dead sea and withered land.

Adventures only make you late for dinner.

Maybe the paths that you each shall tread are already laid before your feet though you do not see them

To whatever end. Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountains. Like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the west. Behind the hills, into shadow. How did it come to this?

The Nazgul they were; the Ringwraiths, the Enemy's most terribly servants; darkness went with them and they cried with the voices of death.

True courage is about knowing not when to take a life, but when to spare one.

Where did you go to, if I may ask?' said Thorin to Gandalf as they rode along. To look ahead,' said he. And what brought you back in the nick of time?' Looking behind,' said he.

Home is behind, the world ahead, And there are many paths to tread Through shadows to the edge of night, Until the stars are all alight. Then world behind and home ahead, We'll wander back and home to bed. Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, Away shall fade! Away shall fade!

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.

Now I know what a piece of bacon feels like when it is suddenly picked out of the pan on a fork and put back on the shelf!" "No you don't!" he heard Dori answering, "because the bacon knows that it will get back in the pan sooner or later; and it is to be hoped we shan't. Also eagles aren't forks!

Then Aragorn stooped and looked in her face, and it was indeed white as a lily, cold as frost, and hard as graven stone. But he bent and kissed her on the brow, and called her softly, saying: 'Éowyn Éomund's daughter, awake! For your enemy has passed away!' - Aragorn & Éowyn

The washing-up was so dismally real that Bilbo was forced to believe the party of the night before had not been part of his bad dreams, as he had rather hoped.

I hope I never smell the smell of apples again!" said Fili. "My tub was full of ut. To smell apples everlastingly when you can scarcely move and are cold and sick with hunger is maddening. I could eat anything in the wide world now for hours on end - but not an apple!

Stir not the bitterness in the cup that I mixed for myself,' said Denethor. 'Have I not tasted it now many nights upon my tongue, foreboding that worse lay in the dregs?

Bilbo saw that the moment had come when he must do something.

the quiet was so deep that their feet seemed to thump along while all the trees leaned over them and listened,

deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone.

After some time he felt for his pipe. It was not broken, and that was something. Then he felt for his pouch, and there was some tobacco in it, and that was something more. Then he felt for matches and he could not find any at all, and that shattered his hopes completely.

All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Erol and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.

That's what I meant,' said Pippin. 'We hobbits ought to stick together, and we will. I shall go, unless they chain me up. There must be someone with intelligence in the party.

Did he say:"Hullo,Pippin!This is a pleasant surprise!"?No,indeed!He said:"Get up,you tom-fool of a Took!Where,in the name of wonder,in all this ruin is Treebeard?I want him.Quick" -Pippin Took

Mercy!" cried Gandalf. "If the giving of knowledge is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more should you like to know?" "The names of all the stars, and of all living things, and the whole history of Middle-Earth and Over-heave and of the Sundering Seas," laughed Pippin. "Of course! What less?

He drew a deep breath. 'Well, I'm back,' he said.

Books ought to have good endings.How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?

Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart, Éowyn!

In this Music [the singing of the angels in harmony] the World was begun; for Iluvatar made visible the song of the Ainur,and they beheld it as a light in the darkness.

Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwë and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos.

And what would you do, if an uninvited dwarf came and hung his things up in your hall without a word of explanation?

Don't put a lump of rock under my elbow again!

Then she fell on her knees, saying: 'I beg thee!' 'Nay, lady,' he said, and taking her by the hand he raised her. The he kissed her hand, and sprang into the saddle, and rode away, and did not look back; and only those who knew him well and were near to him saw the pain that he bore.

I don't know how to say it, but after last night I feel different. I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way. I know we are going to take a very long road, into darkness; but I know I can't turn back. It isn't right to see Elves now, nor dragons, nor mountains, that I want - I don't rightly know what I want: but I have something to do before the end, and it lies ahead, not in the Shire. I must see it through, sir, if you understand me.

Human stories are practically always about one thing, really, aren't they? Death. The inevitability of death. . . . . . (quoting an obituary) 'There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that ever happens to man is natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die, but for every man his death is an accident, and even if he knows it he would sense to it an unjustifiable violation.' Well, you may agree with the words or not, but those are the key spring of The Lord Of The Rings

Of the twelve companions of Thorin, ten remained. Fili and Kili had fallen defending him with shield and body, for he was their mother’s elder brother.

If you took this thing on yourself, unwilling, at others' asking, then you have pity and honour from me. And I marvel at you: to keep it hid and not to use it. You are a new people and a new world to me. Are all your kin of like sort? Your land must be a realm of peace and content, and there must gardners be in high hounour.

For the trouble with the real folk of Faerie is that they do not always look like what they are; and they put on the pride and beauty that we would fain wear ourselves.

Where there are so many, all speech becomes a debate without end. But two together may perhaps find wisdom.

I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun; and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a Shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.

These folk are hewers of trees and hunters of beasts; therefore we are their unfriends, and if they will not depart we shall afflict them in all ways that we can." -- The Silmarllion, JRR Tolkien

Farewell sweet earth and northern sky, for ever blest, since here did lie and here with lissom limbs did run beneath the Moon, beneath the Sun, Lúthien Tinúviel more fair than Mortal tongue can tell. Though all to ruin fell the world and were dissolved and backward hurled; unmade into the old abyss, yet were its making good, for this― the dusk, the dawn, the earth, the sea― that Lúthien for a time should be.

Then Aragorn was abashed, for he saw the elven-light in her eyes and the wisdom of many days; yet from that hour he loved Arwen Undómiel daughter of Elrond.

At last, Lady Evenstar, fairest in this world, and most beloved, my world is fading. Lo! we have gathered, and we have spent, and now the time of payment draws near." 'Arwen knew well what he intended, and long had foreseen it; nonetheless she was overborne by her grief. "Would you then, lord, before your time leave your people that live by your word?" she said.

The stars are far brighter Than gems without measure, The moon is far whiter Than silver in treasure; The fire is more shining On hearth in the gloaming Than gold won by mining, So why go a-roaming? O! Tra-la-la-lally Come back to the Valley.

All the same, I should like it all plain and clear," said he obstinately, putting on his business manner (usually reserved for people who tried to borrow money off him), and doing his best to appear wise and prudent and professional and live up to Gandalf's recommendation. "Also I should like to know about risks, out-of-pocket expenses, time required and remuneration, and so forth"--by which he meant: "What am I going to get out of it ? and am I going to come back alive?