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'It's a gift!' he said. He was referring to his art, and also to the result; but he was using the word quite literally.
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I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone.' I should think so — in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!
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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.
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Far over the Misty Mountains cold, To dungeons deep and caverns old, We must away, ere break of day, To seek our pale enchanted gold. The dwarves of yore made mighty spells, While hammers fell like ringing bells, In places deep, where dark things sleep, In hollow halls beneath the fells. The pines were roaring on the heights, The wind was moaning in the night, The fire was red, it flaming spread, The trees like torches blazed with light.
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Few there were who could change his courses by counsel. None by force.
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You ought not to be rude to an eagle, when you are only the size of a hobbit, and are up in hid eyrie at night!
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And she looked at him and saw the grave tenderness in his eyes, and yet knew, for she was bred among men of war, that here was one whom no Rider of the Mark could outmatch in battle.
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And here he was, a little halfling from the Shire, a simple hobbit of the quiet countryside, expected to find a way where the great ones could not go, or dared not go. It was an evil fate.
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Cold be hand and heart and bone, and cold be sleep under stone: never more to wake on stony bed, never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead. In the black wind the stars shall die, and still on gold here let them lie, till the dark lord lifts his hand over dead sea and withered land.
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Speak politely to an enraged dragon.
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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?
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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.
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I may be a burglar...but I'm an honest one, I hope, more or less.
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His old life lay behind in the mists, dark adventure lay in front.
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All my own small perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded.
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Better mistrust undeserved than rash words.
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War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.
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I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew.
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Your lullaby would waken a drunken goblin!
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Slight changes simply make a blur.
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'I think we shall have to give the region a name. What do you propose?' 'The Porter settled that some time ago,' said the Second Voice. 'Train for Niggle's Parish in the bay.'
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And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!
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Small wonder that spell means both a story told, and a formula of power over living men.
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Courage will now be your best defence against the storm that is at hand-—that and such hope as I bring.