Quotes by J.R.R. Tolkien

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 cant turn back.

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.

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

How shall a man judge what to do in such times?As he ever has judged, said Aragorn. Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear...It is a mans part to discern them, as much in th Golden Wood as in his own house.

In account after account of exorcisms the demonic voices will propound nihilism of one variety or another.

All his court were cast down in slumber, and all the fires faded and were quenched; but the Silmarils in the crown on Morgoths head blazed forth suddenly with a radiance of white flame; and the burden of that crown and of the jewels bowed down his head, as though the world were set upon it, laden with a weight of care, of fear, and of desire, that even the will of Morgoth could not support. Then Lúthien catching up her winged robe sprang into the air, and her voice came dropping down like rain into pools, profound and dark. She cast her cloak before his eyes, and set upon him a dream, dark as the outer Void where once he walked alone.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost.

Not all that have fallen are vanquished.

Nobody believes me when I say that my long book is an attempt to create a world in which a form of language agreeable to my personal aesthetic might seem real. But it is true.

Now and again he spoke to those that served him and thanked them in their own language. They smiled at him and said laughing: Here is a jewel among hobbits!

It [discovering Finnish] was like discovering a wine-cellar filled with bottles of amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me.

please dont cook me, kind sirs! I am a good cook myself, and cook better than I cook, if you see what I mean.

My name is growing all the time, and I’ve lived a very long, long time; so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language, in the Old Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.

Our language now has become quick-moving (in syllables), and may be very supple and nimble, but is rather thin in sound and in sense too often diffuse and vague. the language of our forefathers, especially in verse, was slow, not very nimble, but very sonorous, and was intensely packed and concentrated - or could be in a good poet.

it is horrible being all alone.

And so Gollum found them hours later, when he returned, crawling and creeping down the path out of the gloom ahead. Sam sat propped against the stone, his head dropping sideways and his breathing heavy. In his lap lay Frodos head, drowned in sleep; upon his white forehead lay one of Sams brown hands, and the other lay softly upon his masters breast. Peace was in both their faces.Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodos knee--but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.

Few other griefs amid the ill chances of this world have more bitterness and shame for a mans heart than to behold the love of a lady so fair and brave that cannot be returned.

And when [Bëor] lay dead, of no wound or grief, but stricken by age, the Eldar saw for the first time the swift waning of the life of Men, and the death of weariness which they knew not in themselves; and they grieved greatly for the loss of their friends. But Bëor at the last had relinquished his life willingly and passed in peace; and the Eldar wondered much at the strange fate of Men, for in all their lore there was no account of it, and its end was hidden from them.

It is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels. The world is all grown strange...How shall a man judge what to do in such times? As he ever has judged, said Aragorn. Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a mans part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.

And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Ilúvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide ad beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow from which its beauty chiefly came.