Tolkien Quotes

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

What would a racist call werewolves? Wargs? She kind of liked that one, but suspected that racist bastards didn't read Tolkien.

~ Patricia Briggs

Don't trust your head, Samwise, it is not the best part of you.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

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

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Tolkien, who created this marvellous vehicle, doesn't go anywhere in it. He just sits where he is. What I mean by that is that he always seems to be looking backwards, to a greater and more golden past; and what's more he doesn't allow girls or women any important part in the story at all. Life is bigger and more interesting than The Lord of the Rings thinks it is.

~ Philip Pullman

I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothloriene no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were the Horselords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fanghorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystefied as Frodo at Gandalf's failure to appear on September 22.J.R.R. Tolkien, in a letter to W.H. Auden, June 7, 1955

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

The cry that 'fantasy is escapist' compared to the novel is only an echo of the older cry that novels are 'escapist' compared with biography, and to both cries one should make the same answer: that freedom to invent outweighs loyalty to mere happenstance, the accidents of history; and good readers should know how to filter a general applicability from a particular story.

~ Tom Shippey

Then holding the star aloft and the bright sword advanced, Frodo, hobbit of the Shire, walked steadily down to meet the eyes.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin – to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours – closer than you yourself keep it. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway: there it is. We know most of what Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the ring. We are horribly afraid–but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Armageddon,' Sandy said. 'The final battle. The ultimate confrontation between good and evil. That's what armageddon is supposed to be. Right?'Hobbins lifted a pale white eyebrow, said nothing.'Which side are we?' Sandy demanded. 'Which side are we?''That's one you got to work out yourself, friend. This ain't like in Tolkien, is it?

~ George R.r. Martin

They made for his noise far quicker than he had expected. They were frightfully angry. Quite apart from the stones no spider has ever like being called Attercop, and Tomnoddy of course, is insulting to anybody.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Aw, fudge,' floated down to me, as a couple of golden eyes peered over a third-floor window ledge. 'You're a freaking dhampir. Why are you reading Tolkien?'I shrugged, then had to dodge the potted geranium he threw at me. 'After five hundred years, you've read just about everything. Besides, he had hella world-building skills.

~ Karen Chance

And once upon a time I wondered: Is writing epic fantasy not somehow a betrayal? Did I not somehow do a disservice to my own reality by paying so much attention to the power fantasies of disenchanted white men?But. Epic fantasy is not merely what Tolkien made it.This genre is rooted in the epic — and the truth is that there are plenty of epics out there which feature people like me. Sundiata’s badass mother. Dihya, warrior queen of the Amazighs. The Rain Queens. The Mino Warriors. Hatshepsut’s reign. Everything Harriet Tubman ever did. And more, so much more, just within the African components of my heritage. I haven’t even begun to explore the non-African stuff. So given all these myths, all these examinations of the possible… how can I not imagine more? How can I not envision an epic set somewhere other than medieval England, about someone other than an awkward white boy? How can I not use every building-block of my history and heritage and imagination when I make shit up?And how dare I disrespect that history, profane all my ancestors’ suffering and struggles, by giving up the freedom to imagine that they’ve won for me.

~ N.k. Jemisin

... the reader is probably wondering that if Tolkien did indeed fashion two of his heroic characters from Catholic prophecies, what about the evil protagonists? Were any of them inspired by these little-known revelations concerning future times? The answer is yes, but to discover the links between the myth and the prophecies, we must venture not only into the realm of unnerving revelations, but also into the murky world of secret sects, dark plots, occult signs, bloody revolutions and conspiracy theories ~ we must probe deep into the burning Eye of Sauron.

~ E.a. Bucchianeri

Tolkien did admit that, 'As a guide, I had only my own feelings for what is appealing or moving.' In other words ~ he wrote about what interested him ~ and despite his protestation of including anything allegorical into his tale, Catholic history and mystic prophecy obviously received its fair share of attention ...

~ E.a. Bucchianeri

...and for a great deal it seemed good to him, for in the music there were no flaws.

~ J R R Tolkien

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.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

But of bliss and glad life there is little to be said, before it ends; as works fair and wonderful, while they still endure for eyes to see, are ever their own record, and only when they are in peril or broken for ever do they pass into song.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

All that is gold does not glitter,Not all those who wander are lost;The old that is strong does not wither,Deep roots are not reached by the frost.J.R.R. Tolkien

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

The love of Arda was set in your hearts by Ilúvatar, and he does not plant to no purpose.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

The key to having good scales is a healthy diet of venison when you’re just a wee dragon lad.

~ Sully Tarnish

How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Is there any pleasure on earth as great as the circle of Christian friends by a good fire?

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Heaven is not a republic.

~ E.a. Bucchianeri

Grief is a hone to a hard mind.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Though mortal Men have little life beside the span of the Elves, they would rather spend it in battle than fly or submit. The defiance of Húrin Thalion is a great deed; and though Morgoth slay the doer he cannot make the deed not to have been. Even the Lords of the West will honour it; and is it not written into the history of Arda, which neither Morgoth nor Manwë can unwrite?

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

And there's no sex, hardly any love stuff at all, in Middle Earth, which always made me think, yes, the world would be better off without it.

~ Jo Walton

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost, the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost..

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

He is a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and twilight fancies, but he never invented them either: he found them a place to live, a green alternative to each day's madness here in a poisoned world. We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers - thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.

~ Peter S. Beagle

But Ilúvatar knew that Men, being set amid the turmoils of the powers of the world, would stray often, and would not use their gifts in harmony; and he said: 'These too in their time shall find that all that they do redounds at the end only to the glory of my work.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

You know you've written a good book when even the people who hate it admit it's entertaining.

~ Sully Tarnish

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

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Both [Satan and Melkor/Morgoth] are loud in their defiance, claiming that they would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven. One might have admired these rebel angels if one believed their defiance was in the name of liberty- however, both lied. Their rebellions were only provoked by envy and the usurpers' wishes to take the perceived tyrants' place. Never were two more natural tyrants than Morgoth and Satan.

~ David Day

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.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

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.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Smeagol won't grub for roots and carrotses and - taters. What's taters,precious, eh, what's taters?Po-ta-toes! said Sam.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Did you know, ji,’ Zulu offered, ‘that the map of Tolkien’s Middle earth fits quite well over central England and Wales? Maybe all fairylands are right here, in our midst.

~ Salman Rushdie

In Middle Earth a motley crew assembles to save the world as we know it. Four hobbits, two men, a dwaft, an elf, and a wizard, too. They rambled to destroy the ring in the mountains of Mordor. Now it is you time. Dare you join this fellowship? The rules are simple. Twelve more clues will be hidden. One for each month. You have a month to solve each riddle. Plenty of time. On the full moon of each month, the next clue will be hidden. Seek it. Leave each where you found it for the next traveler. Where does this quest lead? What is the endgame? Follow and you shall find out. You must be wise, learned, disciplined, and above all, not a FROG. If you agree to join this fellowship, proceed with your first clue: MY WORDS are legend. Legends are HISTORY, My field of study.ONE BOOK only in your shire. With your strength, the book has been found, and now you must climb to the Scholar's Shrine. Four travelers begin this talle: Hlaf Elf, Troll, Halfling, and Thief. To make it to the end, you will need to build a motley crew. Find a wizard to see you through. You walk a long and winding path to find your next clue. Shall the Half Elf teache you his songs to pass the time? Perhaps that will draw an elf lord into your presence. The road is long, and the leaves do change color. You have demonstrated your strength, and your intelligence: now you must go boldly into battle. Be wise with your strategy: though it my seem like a game, there is more to the story.

~ Megan Frazer Blakemore