J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes

“No onslaught more fierce was ever seen in the savage world of beasts, where some desperate small creature armed with little teeth, alone, will spring upon a tower of horn and hide that stands above its fallen mate.”

“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.”

“And yet, Eomer, I say to you that she loves you more truly than me, for you she loves and knows; but in me she loves only a shadow and a thought: a hope of glory and great deeds, and lands far from the fields of Rohan. - Aragorn to Eomer, of Eowyn”

“Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart, Éowyn!”

“He told them tales of bees and flowers, the ways of trees, and the strange creatures of the Forest, about the evil things and the good things, things friendly and things unfriendly, cruel things and kind things, and secrets hidden under brambles.”

“Haldir had gone on and was now climbing to the high flet. As Frodo prepared to follow him, he laid his hand upon the tree beside the ladder: never before had he been so suddenly and so keenly aware of the feel and texture of a tree's skin and of the life within it. He felt a delight in wood and the touch of it, neither as forester nor as carpenter; it was the delight of the living tree itself.”

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

“You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.”

“Where will wants not, a way opens.”

“I'm looking for someone to share in an adventure.”

“They say it is the first step that costs the effort. I do not find it so. I am sure I could write unlimited 'first chapters'. I have indeed written many.”

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

“Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.”

“If you want to know what cram is, I can only say that I don’t know the recipe; but it is biscuitish, keeps good indefinitely, is supposed to be sustaining, and is certainly not entertaining, being in fact very uninteresting except as a chewing exercise.”

“We are never late. We arrive precisely when we mean to.”

“I don't know, and I would rather not guess.”

“I want to be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.”

“Venice seemed incredibly lovely, elvishly lovely--to me like a dream of Old Gondor, or Pelargir of the Numenorean Ships, before the return of the Shadow.”

“Tears unnumbered ye shall shed.”

“Very potent influence on myself has been Finnish.”

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

“Aure entuluva! day shall come again!”

“he was for long my only audience... Only from him did I ever get the idea that my ‘stuff’ could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never have brought The L. of the R. to a conclusion.”

“We set out to save the Shire, Sam and it has been saved - but not for me.”

“Speak politely to an enraged dragon.”