I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago, and of people who will see a world that I shall… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
The world changes, and all that once was strong now proves unsure. — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
Many are the strange chances of the world, and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the Wise… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
There are many powers in the world, for good or for evil. Some are greater than I am. Against some I have… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
Nobody believes me when I say that my long book is an attempt to create a world in which a form of… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
Middle-earth is our world. I have (of course) placed the action in a purely imaginary (though not wholly impossible) period of antiquity,… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
Most people have made this mistake of thinking Middle-earth is a particular kind of earth or is another planet of the science… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
The rule of no realm is mine. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
I have never had much confidence in my own work, and even now when I am assured (still much to my grateful… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
The news today about 'Atomic bombs' is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator'. He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share Image
I never liked Hans Christian Andersen because I knew he was always getting at me. — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share
No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly. — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share
If you don't know where you're going, you'll wind up somewhere else. Not all those who wander are lost. — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share
The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is, where he came from. And… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share
Much of the same sort of degraded and filthy talk can still be heard among the orc-minded; dreary and repetitive with hatred and contempt,… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share
The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share
Many are the strange chances of the world, and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the Wise falter. — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share
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 Copy Share
Outside the ring of dancing warriors with spears and axes stood wolves at a respectful distance, watching and waiting. — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share
The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift, also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to… — J. R. R. Tolkien Copy Share
