Quotes by J.R.R. Tolkien

Few can foresee whither their road will lead them, till they come to its end.

As the story grew, it put down roots into the past and threw out unexpected branches .

He knew that all the hazards and perils were now drawing together to a point: the next day would be a day of doom, the day of final effort or disaster, the last gasp.

Wizards are always troubled about the future.

Sam was the only member of the party who had not been over the river before. He had a strange feeling as the slow gurgling stream slipped by: his old life lay behind in the mists, dark adventure lay in front.

Literature works from mind to mind and is more progenitive. It is at once more universal and more poignantly particular. If it speaks of bread or wine or stone or tree, it appeals to the whole of these things, to their ideas; yet each hearer will give to them a peculiar personal embodiment in his imagination. Should the story say he ate bread, the dramatic producer or painter can only show a piece of bread according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own. If a story says he climbed a hill and saw a river in the valley below, the illustrator may catch, or nearly catch, his own vision of such a scene; but every hearer of the words will have his own picture, and it will be made out of all the hills and rivers and dales he has ever seen, but especially out of The Hill, The River, The Valley which were for him the first embodiment of the word.

Literature shrivels in a universal language, and an uprooted language rots before it dies. And it should be possible to lift the eyes above the cant of the ‘language of Shakespeare’... sufficiently to realise the magnitude of the loss to humanity that the world-dominance of any one language now spoken would entail: no language has ever possessed but a small fraction of the varied excellences of human speech, and each language represents a different vision of life ...

Until the coming of another day of fear, they walked in silence with bowed heads.

A fair vision had welcomed him in this land of disease.

May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.

Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars.

And you, Ring-bearer,’ she said, turning to Frodo. ‘I come to you last who are not last in my thoughts. For you I have prepared this.’ She held up a small crystal phial: it glittered as she moved it, and rays of white light sprang from her hand. ‘In this phial,’ she said, ‘is caught the light of Eärendil’s star, set amid the waters of my fountain. It will shine still brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out. Remember Galadriel and her Mirror!’Frodo took the phial, and for a moment as it shone between them, he saw her again standing like a queen, great and beautiful.

They themselves do not see the world of light as we do, but our shapes cast shadows in their minds, which only the noon sun destroys.

Better mistrust undeserved than rash words.

When Summer lies upon the world, and in a noon of gold, Beneath the roof of sleeping leaves the dreams of trees unfold;When woodland halls are green and cool, and wind is in the West, Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is best!

For it is now to us itself ancient; and yet its maker was telling of things already old and weighted with regret, and he expended his art in making keen that touch upon the heart which sorrows have that are both poignant and remote.

If all the seven stones were laid out before me now, I should shut my eyes and put my hands in my pockets.

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?

Well here we are, just the four of us that started out together, said Merry. We have left all the rest behind, one after another. It seems almost like a dream that has slowly faded.Not to me, said Frodo. To me it feels more like falling asleep again.

The Eleven king looked sternly upon Thorin, when he was brought before him, and asked him many questions. But Thorin would only say that he was starving. Why did you and your folk three times try to attack my people at their merrymaking? asked the king. We did not attack them, answered Thorin, we came to beg because we were starving. Where are your friends now, and what are they doing? I dont know, but I expect that theyre all starving in the forest. What were you doing in the forest? Looking for food and drink, because we were starving. And what brought you into the forest at all? asked the king angrily. At that Thorin shut his mouth and would not say another word.