J R R Tolkin Quotes & Sayings

Trying to eliminate worldly temptations
only makes our spiritual growth limited. — Toba Beta

If you're going to be an artist, all life is your subject. And all your experience is part of your art. A youngster told me recently that he was going to give himself a year to see if he has talent. A year! It takes a lifetime to see if you have it. Painting is total engagement. — Ben Shahn

Solomon smiles with us — N.D. Wilson

I kinda like to scare my sister, and usually she gets really mad at me for doing that. — Cayden Boyd

Small streams don't plan to be mighty rivers. We just move in a direction; God decides what He'll have us become. — Bob Goff

Not everybody agrees on what's funny, obviously. — Tim Meadows

Free verse seemed democratic because it offered freedom of access to writers. And those who disdained free verse would always be open to accusations of elitism, mandarinism. Open form was like common ground on which all might graze their cattle - it was not to be closed in by usurping landlords. — James Fenton

There are authors I truly enjoy to read, like John Irving and Don Delillo and Vollman and Hubert Selby Jr. and Hunter S. Thompson. And then there are writers that, while I enjoy their work, I read as a challenge to myself, to sharpen my knives, like Goethe or Genet or Faulkner or Joyce or Salinger. And I have a terrible weakness for music biographies. They are the best books to take on the road. I don't even have to like the band to enjoy the book. Want a wonderful literary anecdote? And watch your toes, because I'm dropping names like bricks. My favorite book of all time is Among The Dead by Michael Tolkin. Wonderful, dark, funny book. — Sammy Winston

Come to think of it, Pasadena's as good a place to die as any. — Michael Tolkin

I went to Spago once, eight years ago. I had just closed a deal. I thought it would be fun to go to Spago and it wasn't. I got a bad table and nobody paid any attention to me. — Michael Tolkin

I've yet to meet a writer who could change water into wine, and we have a tendency to treat them like that. — Michael Tolkin

The trouble with the world is not that people know too little; it's that they know so many things that just aren't so. — Mark Twain

I am aware that true miracles, things unexplained by human reason, can only occur when Jesus does them. — Gail Davis

It's impossible not to be taken in by the spectacle of oneself, which is the biggest sin of the culture right now. — Michael Tolkin

One of the things I learned from my father, and it did not serve me well at all, was that he was a successful writer, he earned a living. And it was a shock for me to find out that it was actually hard to make a living as a writer. — Michael Tolkin

I was thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we can just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we got something here. — Michael Tolkin

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

On one level, nothing's really changed in my life. I still drive my daughter in the car pool on Monday. But it's impossible not to be aware of this rush of attention; it's impossible not to be seduced by it once you've entered into it, seduced by being unhappy when the attention wanes. — Michael Tolkin

The accountability of a group environment causes people to change their behaviors. — Dave Ramsey