"Rover did not know in the least where the moon's path led to, and at present he was much too frightened and excited to ask, and anyway he was beginning to get used to extraordinary things happening to him."

"All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost. The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost."

"Short cuts make long delays."

"Hobbits!' he thought. 'Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree. Three of them! There's something mighty queer behind this.' He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it."

"All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Erol and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death."

"You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have."

"We may indeed in counsel point to the higher road, but we cannot compel any free creature to walk upon it. That leadeth to tyranny, which disfigureth good and maketh it seem hateful."

"The Eleven king looked sternly upon Thorin, when he was brought before him, and asked him many questions. But Thorin would only say that he was starving. "Why did you and your folk three times try to attack my people at their merrymaking?" asked the king. "We did not attack them," answered Thorin, "we came to beg because we were starving." "Where are your friends now, and what are they doing?" "I don't know, but I expect that they're all starving in the forest." "What were you doing in the forest?" "Looking for food and drink, because we were starving." "And what brought you into the forest at all?" asked the king angrily. At that Thorin shut his mouth and would not say another word."

"They made for his noise far quicker than he had expected. They were frightfully angry. Quite apart from the stones no spider has ever like being called Attercop, and Tomnoddy of course, is insulting to anybody."

"Why O why did I ever leave my hobbit-hole?" said poor Mr. Baggins, bumping up and down on Bombur's back."

"I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam."

"I am doubtful myself about the undertaking. Part of the attraction of the L.R. is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in a sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed. Also many of the older legends are purely 'mythological', and nearly all are grim and tragic: a long account of the disasters that destroyed the beauty of the Ancient World, from the darkening of Valinor to the Downfall of Numenor and the flight of Elendil."

"He willed that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world and should find no rest therein; but they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else."

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

"The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air."

"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."

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

"Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Lightthrough whom is splintered from a single Whiteto many hues, and endlessly combinedin living shapes that move from mind to mind."

"Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"

"Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill."

"All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost."

"Sam was the only member of the party who had not been over the river before. He had a strange feeling as the slow gurgling stream slipped by: his old life lay behind in the mists, dark adventure lay in front."

"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."

"I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!"

"I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to."

"Until the coming of another day of fear, they walked in silence with bowed heads."

"For you little gardener and lover of trees, I have only a small gift. Here is set G for Galadriel, but it may stand for garden in your tongue. In this box there is earth from my orchard, and such blessing as Galadriel has still to bestow is upon it. It will not keep you on your road, nor defend you against any peril; but if you keep it and see your home again at last, then perhaps it may reward you. Though you should find all barren and laid waste, there will be few gardens in Middle-earth that will bloom like your garden, if you sprinkle this earth there. Then you may remember Galadriel, and catch a glimpse far off of Lorien, that you have seen only in our winter. For our spring and our summer are gone by, and they will never be seen on earth again save in memory."

"We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil."

"Deep roots are not reached by the frost."

"This was the first of the sorrows of Turin."

"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!"

"The 'Elves' are 'immortal', at least as far as this world goes: and hence are concerned rather with the griefs and burdens of deathlessness in time and change, than with death."

"I don't know how to say it, but after last night I feel different. I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way. I know we are going to take a very long road, into darkness; but I know I can't turn back. It isn't right to see Elves now, nor dragons, nor mountains, that I want - I don't rightly know what I want: but I have something to do before the end, and it lies ahead, not in the Shire. I must see it through, sir, if you understand me."

"You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin - to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours, closer than you yourself keep it. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway: there it is. We know most of what Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the ring. We are horribly afraid, but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds."

"On their deathbed men will speak true, they say."

"I can manage," said Frodo. "I must."

"True courage is knowing not when to take a life, but to save one."

"Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's risingI came singing into the sun, sword unsheathing.To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking:Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!"

"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."

"It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt,It lies behind stars and under hills,And empty holes it fills,It comes first and follows after,Ends life, kills laughter."

"I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighborhood. But the world that contained even the imagination of FA¡fnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever the cost of peril."

"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."

"At length the Lady Galadriel released them from her eyes, and she smiled. 'Do not let your hearts be troubled,' she said. 'Tonight you shall sleep in peace.' Then they sighed and felt suddenly weary, as those who have been questioned long and deeply, though no words had been spoken openly."

"May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out."

"I am told that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it."

"In the deep places he gives thought to music great and terrible; and the echo of that music runs through all the veins of the world in sorrow and in joy; for if joyful is the fountain that rises in the sun, its springs are in the wells of sorrow unfathomed at the foundations of the Earth."

"Literature shrivels in a universal language, and an uprooted language rots before it dies. And it should be possible to lift the eyes above the cant of the 'language of Shakespeare'... sufficiently to realise the magnitude of the loss to humanity that the world-dominance of any one language now spoken would entail: no language has ever possessed but a small fraction of the varied excellences of human speech, and each language represents a different vision of life ..."

"Grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mould of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps."

"I have spoken words of hope. But only of hope. Hope is not victory."

"In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."