J.r.r. Tolkien Lord Of The Rings Quotes & Sayings

However it may prove, one must tread the path that need chooses! — J.R.R. Tolkien

Not all that have fallen are vanquished. — J.R.R. Tolkien

You cannot pass! — J.R.R. Tolkien

I do really wish to destroy it!' cried Frodo. 'Or, well, to have it destroyed. I am not made for perilous quests. I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen? — J.R.R. Tolkien

I am commanded to go to the land of Mordor, and therefore I shall go,' said Frodo. 'If there is only one way, then I must take it. What comes after must come. — J.R.R. Tolkien

It is mine to give to whom I will, like my heart. — J.R.R. Tolkien

But in the end it is only a passing thing ... this shadow. Even darkness must pass. - Samwise Gamgee, The Two Towers — J.R.R. Tolkien

I think a servant of the enemy would look fairer and feel fouler.
-Frodo Baggins — J.R.R. Tolkien

Is there no escape then?' said Frodo, looking around wildly. 'If I move I shall be seen and hunted! If I stay, I shall draw them to me! — J.R.R. Tolkien

If you took this thing on yourself, unwilling, at others' asking, then you have pity and honour from me. And I marvel at you: to keep it hid and not to use it. You are a new people and a new world to me. Are all your kin of like sort? Your land must be a realm of peace and content, and there must gardners be in high hounour. — J.R.R. Tolkien

What did I tell you? Something's happening!' cried Sam. '"The war's going well," said Shagrat; but Gorbag he wasn't so sure. And he was right there too. Things are looking up, Mr. Frodo. haven't you got some hope now?'
'Well, no, not much, Sam,' Frodo sighed. 'That's away beyond the mountains. We're going east not west. And I'm so tired. And the Ring is so heavy, Sam. And I begin to see it in my mind all the time, like a great wheel of fire. — J.R.R. Tolkien

For the rest, they shall represent the other Free Peoples of the World: Elves, Dwarves, and Men, Legolas shall be for the Elves; and Gimli son of Gloin for the Dwarves. They are willing to go at least to the passes of the Mountains, and maybe beyond. For Men you shall have Aragorn son of Arathorn, for the Ring of Isildur concerns him closely — J.R.R. Tolkien

Yet seldom do they fail of their seed, And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I see that you are an elf-friend; the light in your eyes and the ring in your voice tells it. — J.R.R. Tolkien

His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The two things that came out clearly were the sense of reality in the background and the mythical value: the essence of myth being that it should have no taint of allegory to the maker and yet should suggest incipient allegories to the reader.
[C.S. Lewis writes to J.R.R. Tolkien on December 7, 1929] — C.S. Lewis

Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil. - Gandalf the Grey, The Return of the King — J.R.R. Tolkien

There's no two ways about it, Tolkien fans are a funny bunch. I should know, for I was one of them. Been there, done that, read the book, gone mad. I first took on The Lord of the Rings at the age of eleven or twelve; to be precise, I began it at the age of eleven and finished at the age of twelve. It was, and remains, not a book that you happen to read, like any other, but a book that happens to you: a chunk bitten out of your life. — Anthony Lane

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
- Gandalf the Grey, The Fellowship of the Ring — J.R.R. Tolkien

The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. — J.R.R. Tolkien

At last Frodo spoke with hesitation. 'I believed that you were a friend before the letter came,' he said, 'or at least I wished to. You have frightened me several times tonight, but never in the way the servants of the Enemy would, or so I imagine. I think one of his spies would - well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand — J.R.R. Tolkien

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

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men, doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I am at home among trees. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Even in ancient days they were, as a rule, shy of 'the Big Folk', as they call us, and now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find. — J.R.R. Tolkien

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. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Frodo: If you ask it of me, I will give you the One Ring. — J.R.R. Tolkien

For you do not yet know the strengths of your hearts, and you cannot foresee what each may meet on the road. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I would love to live in 'The Lord of the Rings.' J. R. R. Tolkien's world is so vivid and rich and sensual. I love the country setting and the routine of the hobbits. Of course, I would like to be a hobbit who goes on small adventures - not huge, horrifying ones like Frodo's quest. — Mary Pope Osborne

No taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of moon or star are left to me. I am naked in the dark, Sam, and there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I begin to see it even with my waking eyes, and all else fades. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Very fair was her face, and her long hair was like a river of gold. Slender and tall she was in her white robe girt with silver; but strong she seemed and stern as steel, a daughter of kings. Thus Aragon for the first time in the full light of day beheld Eowyn, lady of Rohan, and thought her fair, fair and cold, like a morning of pale spring that is not yet come to womanhood. — J.R.R. Tolkien

His head was swimming, and he was far from certain even of the direction they had been going in when he had his fall. He guessed as well as he could, and crawled along for a good way, till suddenly his hand met what felt like a tiny ring of cold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel. It was a turning point in his career, but he did not know it. He put the ring in his pocket almost without thinking; certainly it did not seem of any particular use at the moment. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Aragon felt a shudder run through him at the sound, a strange cold thrill; and yet it was not fear or terror that he felt: rather it was like the sudden bite of a keen air, or the slap of a cold rain that wakes an uneasy sleeper. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I hear nothing but the night-speech of plant and stone. — J.R.R. Tolkien

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

There was a deep silence, only scraped on its surfaces by the faint quiver of empty seed-plumes, and broken grass-blades trembling in small air-movements they could not feel.
'Not a bird!' said Sam mournfully.
'No, no birds,' said Gollum. 'Nice birds!' He licked his teeth. 'No birds here. There are snakeses, wormses, things in the pools. Lots of things, lots of nasty things. No birds,' he ended sadly.
Sam looked at him with distaste. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The light sprang up again, and there on the brink of the chasm, at the very Crack of Doom, stood Frodo, black against the glare, tense; erect, but still as if he had been turned to stone. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Don't you let go. Don't let go. Reach! — J.R.R. Tolkien

Lilly-flowers nodded their half-opened heads in the grass. — J.R.R. Tolkien

It is mine, I tell you. My own. My precious. Yes, my precious. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Hammer and tongs! I am so torn between rage and joy, that if I do not burst, it will be a marvel! — J.R.R. Tolkien

Farewell!' he said to Gandalf. 'I go to find the Sun! — J.R.R. Tolkien

Sleepiness seemed to be creeping out of the ground and up their legs, and falling softly out of the air upon theirheads and eyes. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Let him go, you filth! Let him go! You will not touch him again! — J.R.R. Tolkien

I don't keep water in my pockets."

-Frodo Baggins — J.R.R. Tolkien

But to Sam the evening deepened to darkness as he stood at the Haven; and as he looked at the grey sea he saw only a shadow in the waters that was soon lost in the West. There he stood far into the night, hearing only the sigh and murmur of the waves on the shores of Middle-Earth, and the sound of them sank deep into his heart. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Wonderful folk, Elves, sir! Wonderful!' 'They are,' said Frodo. 'Do you like them still, now you have had a closer view? — J.R.R. Tolkien

And as the captains gazed south to the Land of Mordor, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent: for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell. — J.R.R. Tolkien

As I lay in prison, Sam, I tried to remember the Brandywine, and Woody End, and The Water running through the mill at Hobbiton. But I can't see them now. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Elves are wondrous fair to look upon. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Saruman rose to his feet, and stared at Frodo. There was a strange look in his eyes of mingled wonder and respect and hatred. 'You have grown, Halfling,' he said. 'Yes, you have grown very much. You are wise, and cruel. you have robbed my revenge of sweetness, and now I must go hence in bitterness, in debt to your mercy. I hate it and you! Well, I go and I will trouble you no more. But do not expect me to wish you health and long life. You will have neither. But that is not my doing. I merely foretell. — J.R.R. Tolkien

His love for Frodo rose above all other thoughts, and forgetting his peril he cried aloud: 'I'm coming Mr. Frodo! — J.R.R. Tolkien

Rally to me! To me! — J.R.R. Tolkien

And no one was ill, and everyone was pleased, except those who had to mow the grass. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Is everything sad going to come untrue? — J.R.R. Tolkien

I want to be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren. — J.R.R. Tolkien

It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end ... because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing ... this shadow. Even darkness must pass. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The moral that Plato wished to draw out is that no man can resist the temptation of being able to steal and kill at will. All men are corruptible. Morality is a social construct imposed from the outside. A man may appear to be moral in public to maintain his reputation for integrity and honesty, but once he possesses the power of invisibility, the use of such power would be irresistible. (Some believe that this morality tale was the inspiration for J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, in which a ring that grants the wearer invisibility is also a source of evil.) — Michio Kaku

No, my heart will not yet despair. Gandalf fell and has returned and is with us. We may stand, if only on one leg, or at least be left still upon our knees. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The forest is queer. Everything in it is very much more alive, more aware of what is going on. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Though he walked and breathed, and about him living leaves and flowers were stirred by the same cool wind as fanned his face, Frodo felt he was in a timeless land that did not fade or change or fall into forgetfulness. When he had gone and passed again into the outer world, still Frodo the wanderer from the Shire would walk there, upon the grass among elanor and niphredil in fair Lothlorien — J.R.R. Tolkien

Frodo: Mordor. I hope the others find a safer route.
Sam: Strider will look after them.
Frodo: I don't suppose we'll ever see them again.
Sam: We may yet, Mr. Frodo. We may. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Here was one with an air of high nobility such as Aragorn at times revealed, less high perhaps, yet also less incalculable and remote: one of the Kings of Men born into a later time, but touched with the wisdom and sadness of the Eldar Race. He knew now why Beregond spoke his name with love. He was a captain that men would follow, that he would follow, even under the shadow of the black wings. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Evidently we look so much alike that your desire to make an incurable dent in my hat must be excused. — J.R.R. Tolkien

It was now Frodo's turn to feel pleased with himself. He capered about on the table; and when he came up a second time to the cow jumped over the Moon, he leaped in the air. Much too vigorously; for he came down, bang, into a tray full of mugs, and slipped, and rolled off the table with a crash, clatter, and bump! The audience all opened their mouths wide for laughter, and stopped short in gaping silence; for the singer disappeared. He simply vanished, as if he had gone slap through the floor without leaving a hole! — J.R.R. Tolkien

I felt that something horrible was near from the moment that my foot first touched the water,' said Frodo. 'What was that thing, or were there many of them?'
'I do not know,' answered Gandalf; 'but the arms were all guided by one purpose. Something has crept, or has been driven out of dark waters under the mountains. There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.' He did not speak aloud his thought that whatever it was that dwelt in the lake, it had seized upon Frodo first among all the Company. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Look, my friends!' he called. 'Here's a pretty hobbit-skin to wrap an elven princeling in! If it were known that hobbits had such hides, all the hunters of Middle Earth would be riding to the Shire. — J.R.R. Tolkien

This is surely the most significant of the elements that Tolkien brought to fantasy ... his arranged marriage between the Elder Edda and "The Wind in the Willows"
big Icelandic romance and small-scale, cozy English children's book. The story told by "The Lord of the Rings" is essentially what would happen if Mole and Ratty got drafted into the Nibelungenlied. — Adam Gopnik

Speak, or I will put a dint in your hat that even a wizard will find hard to deal with! — J.R.R. Tolkien

We are truth-speakers, we men of Gondor. We boast seldom, and then perform, or die in the attempt. "Not if I found it on the highway would I take it," I said. Even if I were such a man as to desire this thing, and even though I knew not clearly what this thing was when I spoke, still I should take those words as a vow, and be held by them. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Dagorath was a word in Sindarin, the Elvish language J. R. R. Tolkien had created for The Lord of the Rings. — Ernest Cline

I name you Elf-friend; and may the stars shine upon the end of your road! — J.R.R. Tolkien

Not all those who wander are lost. - Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien — J.R.R. Tolkien

Well, I suppose we must be going on again,' he said. 'I wonder how long it will be before we really are caught and all the toiling and the slinking will be over, and in vain.' He stood up. 'It's dark, and we cannot use the Lady's glass. Keep it safe for me, Sam. I have nowhere to keep it now, except in my hand, and I shall need both hands in the blind night. But Sting I give to you. I have got an orc-blade, but I do not think it will be my part to strike any blow again. — J.R.R. Tolkien

His hair was dark as the shadows of twilight. — J.R.R. Tolkien

A few melancholy birds were pipping and wailing, until the round red sun sank slowly into the western shadows; then an empty silence fell — J.R.R. Tolkien

If room isn't found for them, they'll find it for themselves. They've a right to live, same as other folk,' he said loudly. The local inhabitants did not look pleased at the prospect. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Legolas was standing, gazing northwards into the darkness, thoughtful and silent as a young tree in a windless night. — J.R.R. Tolkien

We cannot achieve victory by arms, but by arms we can give the Ring-bearer his only chance, frail though it be. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The road goes ever on and on — J.R.R. Tolkien

I wonder if people will ever say, "Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring." And they'll say, "Yes, that's one of my favorite stories. Frodo was really courageous, wasn't he, Dad?" "Yes, m'boy, the most famousest of hobbits. And that's saying a lot. — J.R.R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien, the near-universally-hailed father of modern epic fantasy, crafted his magnum opus The Lord of the Rings to explore the forces of creation as he saw them: God and country, race and class, journeying to war and returning home. I've heard it said that he was trying to create some kind of original British mythology using the structure of other cultures' myths, and maybe that was true. I don't know. What I see, when I read his work, is a man trying desperately to dream.
Dreaming is impossible without myths. If we don't have enough myths of our own, we'll latch onto those of others - even if those myths make us believe terrible or false things about ourselves. Tolkien understood this, I think because it's human nature. Call it the superego, call it common sense, call it pragmatism, call it learned helplessness, but the mind craves boundaries. Depending on the myths we believe in, those boundaries can be magnificently vast, or crushingly tight. — N.K. Jemisin

Are you in pain, Frodo?' said Gandalf quietly as he rode by Frodo's side.
'Well, yes I am,' said Frodo. 'It is my shoulder. The wound aches, and the memory of darkness is heavy on me. It was a year ago today.'
'Alas! there are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured,' said Gandalf.
'I fear it may be so with mine,' said Frodo. 'There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?'
Gandalf did not answer. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I have more need of thought than of sleep. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I don't know how long we shall take to - to finish,' said Frodo. 'We were miserably delayed in the hills. But Samwise Gamgee, my dear hobbit - indeed, Sam my dearest hobbit, friend of friends - I do not think we need give thought to what comes after that. To do the job as you put it - what hope is there that we ever shall? And if we do, who knows what will come of that? If the One goes into the Fire, and we are at hand? I ask you, Sam, are we ever likely to need bread again? I think not. If we can nurse our limbs to bring us to Mount Doom, that is all we can do. More than I can, I begin to feel. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I admire Tolkien greatly. His books had enormous influence on me. And the trope that he sort of established - the idea of the Dark Lord and his Evil Minions - in the hands of lesser writers over the years and decades has not served the genre well. It has been beaten to death. The battle of good and evil is a great subject for any book and certainly for a fantasy book, but I think ultimately the battle between good and evil is weighed within the individual human heart and not necessarily between an army of people dressed in white and an army of people dressed in black. When I look at the world, I see that most real living breathing human beings are grey. — George R R Martin

Frodo: Sam! Wood-Elves! They're going to the harbour beyond the White Towers. To the Grey Havens
Sam: They're leaving Middle-earth.
Frodo: Never to return. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Have we ridden forth to victory, only to stand at last amazed by an old liar with honey on his forked tongue? So would the trapped wolf speak to the hounds, if he could. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The ring! exclaimed Frodo. 'Has he left me that? I wonder why. Still, it may be useful. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Suddenly Faramir stirred, and he opened his eyes, and he looked on Aragorn who bent over him; and a light of knowledge and love was kindled in his eyes, and he spoke softly. 'My lord, you called me. I come. What does the king command? — J.R.R. Tolkien

I wonder,' said Frodo. 'It's my doom, I think, to go to that Shadow yonder, so that a way will be found. But will good or evil show it to me? — J.R.R. Tolkien

Well, you have now, Sam, dear Sam,' said Frodo, and he lay back in Sam's gentle arms, closing his eyes, like a child at rest when night-fears are driven away by some loved voice or hand. Sam felt that he could sit like that in endless happiness ... — J.R.R. Tolkien

Sam: I wonder if we'll ever be put into songs or tales. Frodo: [turns around] What? Sam: I wonder if people will ever say, 'Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring.' And they'll say 'Yes, that's one of my favorite stories. Frodo was really courageous, wasn't he, Dad?' 'Yes, my boy, the most famousest of hobbits. And that's saying a lot.' Frodo: [continue walking] You've left out one of the chief characters - Samwise the Brave. I want to hear more about Sam. [stops and turns to Sam] Frodo: Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam. Sam: Now Mr. Frodo, you shouldn't make fun; I was being serious. Frodo: So was I. [they continue to walk] Sam: Samwise the Brave ... — J.R.R. Tolkien

And so it was settled. Sam Gamgee married Rose Cotton in the spring of 1420 (which was also famous for its weddings), and they came and lived at Bag End. And if Sam thought himself lucky, Frodo knew that he was more lucky himself; for there was not a hobbit in the Shire that was looked after with such care. When the labours or repair had all been planned and set going he took to a quiet life, writing a good deal and going through all his notes. He resigned the office of Deputy Mayor at the Free Fair that Midsummer, and dear old Will Whitfoot had another seven years of presiding at Banquets. — J.R.R. Tolkien

You are a set of deceitful scoundrels! But bless you! I give in. I will take Gildor's advice. If the danger were not so dark, I should dance for joy. Even so, I cannot help feeling happy; happier than I have felt for a long time. — J.R.R. Tolkien

There is darkness there that never sleeps. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Consensus wisdom has it that all modern commercial fantasy novels fall into two camps: those derived from J.R.R. Tolkien and those derived from Mervyn Peake. The 'Lord of the Rings' template or the 'Gormenghast' mold. — Paul Di Filippo

Fawn M. Brodie, whose classic life of Smith earned her excommunication from the Mormon Church, saw the Book of Mormon as 'one of the earliest examples of frontier fiction, the first long Yankee narrative that owes nothing to English literary fashions'.105 There was quite a genre of 'lost race' novels at the time. A century on, J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings saga formed an English Catholic parallel, conscious or unconscious, to Smith's work. — Diarmaid MacCulloch

You take after Bilbo,' said Gandalf. 'There is more about you than meets the eye, as I said of him long ago.' Frodo wondered if the remark meant more than it said — J.R.R. Tolkien