J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes

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

"It's a gift!" he said. He was referring to his art, and also to the result; but he was using the word quite literally.

"You cannot pass," he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. "I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass."

'Power' is an ominous and sinister word in all these tales, except as applied to the gods.

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

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.

In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.

Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

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

And then her heart changed, or at least she understood it; and the winter passed, and the sun shone upon her.

Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme of things not found within recorded time.

Yet trees are not 'trees', until so named and seen and never were so named, till those had been who speech's involuted breath unfurled, faint echo and dim picture of the world

Most English-speaking people … will admit that cellar door is "beautiful," especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful...Well then, in Welsh, for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent, and moving to the higher dimension, the words in which there is pleasure in the contemplation of the association of form and sense are abundant.

That story was the only thing I have ever done which cost me absolutely no pains at all. Usually I compose only with great difficulty and endless rewriting. I woke up one day (more than 2 years ago) with that odd thing virtually complete in my head. It took only a few hours to get down, and then copy out.