Tolkien Quotes

“It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“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

“I warn you, if you bore me, I shall take my revenge.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“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, The Return of the King

“But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the harp on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the deadwood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“I am in fact, a hobbit in all but size”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“The man once wrote:Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.Tolkien had that one mostly right.

I stepped forward, let the door bang closed, and snarled, "Fuck subtle.”
― Jim Butcher, Changes

“Farewell," they cried, "Wherever you fare till your eyries receive you at the journey's end!" That is the polite thing to say among eagles.

"May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks," answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Annotated Hobbit: The Hobbit, or, There and back again

“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, The Hobbit, Or, There And Back Again

“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 Return of the King

“Bilbo’s Last Song

Day is ended, dim my eyes,
But journey long before me lies.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship's beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
Beyond the sunset leads my way.
Foam is salt, the wind is free;
I hear the rising of the Sea.

Farewell, friends! The sails are set,
The wind is east, the moorings fret.
Shadows long before me lie,
Beneath the ever-bending sky,
But islands lie behind the Sun
That I shall raise ere all is done;
Lands there are to west of West,
Where night is quiet and sleep is rest.

Guided by the Lonely Star,
Beyond the utmost harbour-bar,
I’ll find the heavens fair and free,
And beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship, my ship! I seek the West,
And fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth at last.
I see the Star above my mast!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, Bilbo's Last Song

“I should like to save the Shire, if I could - though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. But I don't feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“What would a racist call werewolves? Wargs? She kind of liked that one, but suspected that racist bastards didn't read Tolkien.”
― Patricia Briggs, Fair Game

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But, sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell. - Thorin”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“The thing about Tolkien, aboutThe Lord of the Rings,is that it's perfect. It's this whole world, this whole process of immersion, this journey. It's not, I'm pretty sure, actually true, but that makes it more amazing, that someone could make it all up. Reading it changes everything.”
― Jo Walton, Among Others

“He was tall as a young tree, lithe, immensely strong, able swiftly to draw a great war-bow and shoot down a Nazgûl, endowed with the tremendous vitality of Elvish bodies, so hard and resistant to hurt that he went only in light shoes over rock or through snow, the most tireless of all the Fellowship.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two

“Under the Mountain dark and tall
The King has come unto his hall!
His foe is dead,
the Worm of Dread,
And ever so his foes shall fall.

The sword is sharp, the spear is long,
The arrow swift, the Gate is strong;
The heart is bold that looks on gold;
The dwarves no more shall suffer wrong.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fells like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

-from The Hobbit (Dwarves Battle Song)”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Well, you can go on looking forward," said Gandalf. "There may be many unexpected feasts ahead of you.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“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

“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

“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, The Tolkien Reader

“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”
― 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

“Books ought to have good endings.How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“It is a lovely language,but it takes a very long time to say anything in it,unless it is worth taking a long time to say,and to listen to.

-Treebeard/Fangorn”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“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