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After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth'.
J. R. R. Tolkien -
Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?" A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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It is useless to meet revenge with revenge; it will heal nothing.
J. R. R. Tolkien -
Over the field rang his clear voice calling: ‘Death! Ride, ride to ruin and the world’s ending!
J. R. R. Tolkien -
Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.
J. R. R. Tolkien -
Home is behind, the world ahead, And there are many paths to tread Through shadows to the edge of night, Until the stars are all alight. Then world behind and home ahead, We'll wander back and home to bed. Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, Away shall fade! Away shall fade!
J. R. R. Tolkien -
Leave him! I said. I never mean to. I am going with him, if he climbs to the Moon; and if any of these Black Riders try to stop him, they'll have Sam Gamgee to reckon with, I said. They laughed.
J. R. R. Tolkien -
Fairy tale does not deny the existence of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat...giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy; Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to.
J. R. R. Tolkien -
The doom lies in yourself, not in your name.
J. R. R. Tolkien -
Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart, Éowyn!
J. R. R. Tolkien -
Still round the corner there may wait A new road or a secret gate And though I oft have passed them by A day will come at last when I Shall take the hidden paths that run West of the Moon, East of the Sun.
J. R. R. Tolkien -
The quiet was so deep that their feet seemed to thump along while all the trees leaned over them and listened.
J. R. R. Tolkien -
And when Bëor lay dead, of no wound or grief, but stricken by age, the Eldar saw for the first time the swift waning of the life of Men, and the death of weariness which they knew not in themselves; and they grieved greatly for the loss of their friends. But Bëor at the last had relinquished his life willingly and passed in peace; and the Eldar wondered much at the strange fate of Men, for in all their lore there was no account of it, and its end was hidden from them.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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It was just as the 1914 War burst on me that I made the discovery that 'legends' depend on the language to which they belong; but a living language depends equally on the 'legends' which it conveys by tradition. ... Volapuk, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c &c are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends.
J. R. R. Tolkien -
Did he say:"Hullo,Pippin!This is a pleasant surprise!"?No,indeed!He said:"Get up,you tom-fool of a Took!Where,in the name of wonder,in all this ruin is Treebeard?I want him.Quick" -Pippin Took
J. R. R. Tolkien -
Do not spoil the wonder with haste!
J. R. R. Tolkien -
If you're going to have a complicated story you must work to a map; otherwise you'll never make a map of it afterwards.
J. R. R. Tolkien -
Elvish singing is not a thing to miss, in June under the stars, not if you care for such things.
J. R. R. Tolkien -
The war made me poignantly aware of the beauty of the world.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Fear both the heat and the cold of your heart, and strive for patience, if you can.
J. R. R. Tolkien -
Shadowfax tossed his head and cried aloud, as if a trumpet had summoned him to battle. Then he sprang forward. Fire flew from his feet; night rushed over him. As he fell slowly into sleep, Pippin had a strange feeling: he and Gandalf were still as stone, seated upon the statue of a running horse, while the world rolled away beneath his feet with a great noise of wind.
J. R. R. Tolkien -
Life is rather above the measure of us all (save for a very few perhaps). We all need literature that is above our measure--though we may not have sufficient energy for it all the time.
J. R. R. Tolkien -
He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.
J. R. R. Tolkien