J.R.R. Tolkien Quotes

And sometimes you didn't want to know the end… because how could the end be happy?

What do you fear, lady?" [Aragorn] asked. "A cage," [Éowyn] said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.

We may indeed in counsel point to the higher road, but we cannot compel any free creature to walk upon it. That leadeth to tyranny, which disfigureth good and maketh it seem hateful.

I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.

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.

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

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

I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations.

Fear both the heat and the cold of your heart, and strive for patience, if you can.

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

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

If this nice friendliness would spread about in Mordor, half our trouble would be over.

Far over misty mountains cold To dungeons deep and caverns old We must away, ere break of day, To find our long-forgotten gold.

It's a dangerous business, going out your door.

I warn you, if you bore me, I shall take my revenge.

Voiceless it cries, Wingless flutters, Toothless bites, Mouthless mutters.

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.

It was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort

The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.

A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.

If by my life or death I can protect you, I will.

Why must you speak your thoughts? Silence, if fair words stick in your throat, would serve all our ends better.

A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.

I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone.

Trolls are slow in the uptake, and mighty suspicious about anything new to them.

All my own small perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded.

It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.

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

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.

Your time may come. Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot be always torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do.

He is not half through yet, and to what he will come in the end not even Elrond can foretell. Not to evil, I think. He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something.

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

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

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

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

Why O why did I ever leave my hobbit-hole?" said poor Mr. Baggins, bumping up and down on Bombur's back.

Far, far below the deepest delvings of the dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things.

End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path... One that we all must take.

After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth'.

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

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

The wise speak only of what they know

If you do not believe in a personal God, the question: 'What is the purpose of life?' is unaskable and unanswerable.

Look, up at the sky. There is a light, a beauty up there, that no shadow can touch

It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish.

Farewell, and may the blessing of Elves and Men and all Free Folk go with you. May the stars shine upon your faces!

A hunted man sometimes wearies of distrust and longs for friendship.

You aren't nearly through this adventure yet.

Leave him! I said. I never mean to. I am going with him, if he climbs to the Moon; and if any of these Black Riders try to stop him, they'll have Sam Gamgee to reckon with, I said. They laughed.