Top 500 J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “I have thought of a nice ending for it: and he lived happily ever after to the end of his days.’ Gandalf laughed. ‘I hope he will. But nobody will read the book, however it ends.’ ‘Oh, they may, in years to come. Frodo has read some already, as far as it has gone. You’ll keep an eye on Frodo, won’t you?’ ‘Yes, I will – two eyes, as often as I can spare them.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

402. “Frodo was now safe in the Last Homely House east of the Sea. That house was, as Bilbo had long ago reported, ‘a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.’ Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear and sadness.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

403. “What has roots as nobody sees, Is taller than trees Up, up it goes, And yet never grows? A mountain.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

404. “At last the time came for him to say good-bye to his friends. “Farewell, Balin!” he said; “and farewell, Dwalin; and farewell Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur! May your beards never grow thin!” And turning towards the Mountain he added: “Farewell Thorin Oakenshield! And Fili and Kili! May your memory never fade!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

405. “Shall we mourn here deedless forever a shadow-folk mist-haunting dropping vain tears in the thankless sea.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

406. “Sleep! I feel the need of it, as never I thought any dwarf could, riding is tiring work. Yet my axe is restless in my hand. Give me a row of orc-necks and room to swing and all weariness will fall from me!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

407. “For he was a gentle heart and a great king and kept his oaths; and he rose out of the shadows to a last fair morning.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

408. “Green are the leaves I leave in Mirkwood.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

409. “Farewell! O Gandalf! May you ever appear where you are most needed and least expected!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

410. “Alive without breath, As cold as death; Never thirsty, ever drinking, All in mail never clinking.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

411. “Behold your Music! This is your minstrelsy; and each of you shall find contained herein, amid the design that I set before you, all those things which it may seem that he himself devised or added. And thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind, and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

412. “Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo! By water, wood and hill, by reed and willow, By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us! Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

413. “It was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

414. “You are a very fine person, Mr Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

415. “Is it nice, my preciousss? Is it juicy? Is it scrumptiously crunchable?”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

416. “Thief, thief, thief! Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

417. “It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

418. “This only was wanting. Now comes the night.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

419. “To think I should have lived to be goodmorninged by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

420. “In those days the Great Enemy, of whom Sauron of Mordor was but a servant, dwelt in Angband in the North, and the Elves of the West coming back to Middle-earth made war upon him to regain the Silmarils which he had stolen; and the fathers of Men aided the Elves.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

421. “The King’s grace is greater than you know, and the law is become less stern than aforetime; or else no choice would be given you but to abide here to your life’s end.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

422. “I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones...”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

423. “I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

424. “Gandalf thought of most things; and though he could not do everything, he could do a great deal for friends in a tight corner.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

425. “Curse us and crush us, my precious is lost!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

426. “O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! We still remember, we who dwell In this far land beneath the trees. Thy starlight on the Western Seas.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

427. “You ought not to be rude to an eagle, when you are only the size of a hobbit, and are up in hid eyrie at night!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

428. “Soft as butter they can be, and yet sometimes as tough as old tree-roots.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

429. “Then shouldering their burdens, they set off, seeking a path that would bring them over the grey hills of the Emyn Muil, and down into the Land of Shadow.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

430. “Oh, that won’t do!’ said Bilbo. ‘Books ought to have good endings. 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.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

431. “The fate of Men after death, maybe, is not in the hands of the Valar, nor was all foretold in the Music of the Ainur.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

432. “Deserves death! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

433. “Then he missed the cup! Thieves! Fire! Murder! Such a thing had not happened since first he came to the Mountain! His rage passes description – the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

434. “If this nice friendliness would spread out in Mordor, half our trouble would be over.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

435. “The Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects the generally small reach of their imagination.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

436. “A friend of mine tells that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

437. “Of the twelve companions of Thorin, ten remained. Fili and Kili had fallen defending him with shield and body, for he was their mother’s elder brother.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

438. “It’s the deep breath before the plunge.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

439. “A great Shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

440. “There was a willow hanging over the mill-pool and I learned to climb it. It belonged to a butcher on the Stratford Road, I think. One day they cut it down. They didn’t do anything with it: the log just lay there. I never forgot that.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

441. “And the Ring is so heavy, Sam. I begin to see it in my mind all the time, like a great wheel of fire.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

442. “We are met together in the house of our friend and fellow conspirator, this most excellent and audacious hobbit – may the hair on his toes never fall out! all praise to his wine and ale! –.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

443. “I am going with him, if he climbs to the Moon.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

444. “Here you find us sitting on a field of victory, amid the plunder of armies, and you wonder how we came by a few well-earned comforts!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

445. “You may not like my burglar, but please don’t damage him.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

446. “Wraiths! Wraiths on wings!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

447. “Help means ruin and saving means slaying.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

448. “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.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

449. “That’s the only place in all the lands we’ve ever heard of that we don’t want to see any closer; and that’s the one place we’re trying to get to! And that’s just where we can’t get, nohow.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

450. “There was a fire in the wide hearth before them, and it was burning with a sweet smell, as if it were built of apple-wood.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien