J.R.R. Tolkien

“Human stories are practically always about one thing, really, aren't they? Death. The inevitability of death. . .”

“Still round the corner there may wait”

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

“This thing all things devours:”

“Ho! Ho! Ho! To the bottle I go”

“Far over the misty mountains cold”

“The world was fair, the mountains tall”

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

“Fare well we call to hearth and hall”

“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.”

“Deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.”

“There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark.”

“Oh! That was poetry!" said Pippin. "Do you really mean to start before the break of day?”

“Criticism - however valid or intellectually engaging - tends to get in the way of a writer who has anything personal to say. A tightrope walker may require practice, but if he starts a theory of equilibrium he will lose grace (and probably fall off).”

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.”

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.”

“I sit beside the fire and think”

“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens,'said Gimli.”

“End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take.”

“After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth', and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear.”

“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.”

“Ónen i-estel edain, ú-chebin estel anim.”

“Through Rohan over fen and field where the long grass grows”

“But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow; even darkness must pass.”

“To crooked eyes truth may wear a wry face”

“All that is gold does not glitter,”