Revision Quotes by J. R. R. Tolkien

I never liked Hans Christian Andersen because I knew he was always getting at me.

— J. R. R. Tolkien

No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

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

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

It was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort

— J. R. R. Tolkien

Adventures make one late for supper.

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

I have no help to send, therefore I must go myself.

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

Mind your P's and Q's.

— 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

Outside the ring of dancing warriors with spears and axes stood wolves at a respectful distance, watching and waiting.

— J. R. R. Tolkien

You have to understand the good in things, to detect the real evil.

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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