894 Quotes by J.R.R. Tolkien

Grief is a hone to a hard mind.

I am old, Gandalf. I don't look it, but I am beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts. Well-preserved indeed! Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can't be right. I need a change, or something.

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

Do candles pity moths?

As the world grows older there is loss and gain - let us not with modern insolence and blindness imagine it all gain; [...] but neither must we with neo-pagan obscurity of thought imagine it all loss.

How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?''It will do well, if it ever comes to that,' said Frodo.'Ah!' said Sam. 'And where will they live? That's what I often wonder.

I was very comfortable here, and getting on with my book. If you want to know, I am just writing an ending for it. I had thought of putting: and he lived happily ever afterwards to the end of his days. It is a good ending, and none the worse for having been used before. Now I shall have to alter that: it does not look like coming true; and evidently there will have to be several more chapters, if I live to write them. It is a frightful nuisance.

The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards.

For so sworn good or evil an oath may not be broken and it shall pursue oathkeeper and oathbreaker to the world's end.