Top 500 J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes (2024 Update)
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301. “There cannot be any ‘story’ without a fall – all stories are ultimately about the fall – at least not for human minds as we know them and have them.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

302. “Venice seemed incredibly lovely, elvishly lovely – to me like a dream of Old Gondor, or Pelargir of the Numenorean Ships, before the return of the Shadow.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

303. “A hunted man sometimes wearies of distrust and longs for friendship.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

304. “He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

305. “And thus it came to pass that the Silmarils found their long homes: one in the airs of heaven, and one in the fires of the heart of the world, and one in the deep waters.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

306. “Your lullaby would waken a drunken goblin!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

307. “It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish, as my old gaffer used to say.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

308. “Faithful heart may have froward tongue.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

309. “Seek for the Sword that was broken In Imladris it dwells; There shall be counsels taken Stronger than Morgul-spells. There shall be shown a token That Doom is near at hand, For Isuldur’s Bane shall waken, And the halfling forth shall stand.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

310. “Already he was a very different hobbit from the one that had run out without a pocket-handkerchief from Bag-End long ago. He had not had a pocket-handkerchief for ages.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

311. “A traitor may betray himself and do good he does not intend.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

312. “It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

313. “The doom lies in yourself, not in your name.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

314. “Truly songs and tales fall utterly short of the reality, O Smaug the Chiefest and greatest of Calamities.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

315. “The strongest must seek a way, say you? But I say: let a ploughman plough, but choose an otter for swimming, and for running light over grass and leaf, or over snow- an Elf!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

316. “Yes, I am here. And you are lucky to be here too after all the absurd things you’ve done since you left home.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

317. “And it is not our part here to take thought only for a season, or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age of the world.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

318. “With hope or without hope we will follow the trail of our enemies. And woe to them, if we prove the swifter!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

319. “Bilbo saw that the moment had come when he must do something.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

320. “And he sang to them, now in the Elven tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

321. “Many are the strange chances of the world,? said Mithrandir, ’and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the Wise falter.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

322. “He knew that all the hazards and perils were now drawing together to a point: the next day would be a day of doom, the day of final effort or disaster, the last gasp.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

323. “Then Elrond and Galadriel rode on; for the Third Age was over and the Days of the Rings were passed and an end was come of the story and song of those times.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

324. “You cannot pass!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

325. “We don’t want any adventures here! You might try over the Hill or Across the Water.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

326. “Where iss it, where iss it: my Precious, my Precious? It’s ours, it is, and we wants it.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

327. “Much evil must befall a country before it ever really forgets the Elves, if once they lived there.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

328. “No dragon can resist the fascination of riddling talk and of wasting time trying to understand it.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

329. “On their deathbed men will speak true, they say.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

330. “There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men for this treachery.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

331. “I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones; and most of all I detest the segregation or separation of Language and Literature. I do not care which of them you think White.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

332. “Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow, Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow. None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the Master: His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

333. “The way is shut. It was made by those who are Dead, and the Dead keep it, until the time comes. The way is shut.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

334. “Many evil things there are that your strong walls and bright swords do not stay.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

335. “Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do not exist, and that religion is either a mistake or a fraud. Atheism is an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively, fearlessly, always trying to understand all things as a part of nature.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

336. “He loved mountains, or he had loved the thought of them marching on the edge of stories brought from far away; but now he was borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth. He longed to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by a fire.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

337. “Evidently we look so much alike that your desire to make an incurable dent in my hat must be excused.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

338. “Go back to the abyss! Fall into nothingness that awaits you and your master!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

339. “This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

340. “It is written in my life-blood, such that it is, thick or thin; and I can no other.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

341. “I wish I was at home in my nice hole by the fire, with the kettle just beginning to sing!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

342. “Hobbits give presents to other people on their own birthdays. Not very expensive ones, as a rule, and not so lavishly as on this occasion; but it was not a bad system.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

343. “There was a most specially greedy, strong and wicked worm called Smaug.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

344. “Is everything sad going to come untrue?”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

345. “And what would you do, if an uninvited dwarf came and hung his things up in your hall without a word of explanation?”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

346. “No taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of moon or star are left to me. I am naked in the dark, Sam, and there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I begin to see it even with my waking eyes, and all else fades.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

347. “My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

348. “We are plain quiet folk, and I have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, and uncomfortable things.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

349. “Adventures only make you late for dinner.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

350. “A good vocabulary is not acquired by reading books written according to some notion of the vocabulary of one’s age group. It comes from reading books above one.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien