Following on the success of Favorite Movie Quotes here’s a place to hoist up your Tolkien bites.
Remember its TOLKIEN not that “based on JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings” tripe, ok?
And that means you.
Favorite Tolkien Middle Earth Quotes
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{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
Gandalf: A thing is going to happen which has not happened since the Elder Days: the Ents are going to wake up and find that they are strong.
Theoden: My body is broken. I go to my fathers. And even in their mighty company I shall not now be ashamed. I felled the black serpent.
Merry: Well here we are, just the four of us that started out together. We hav left all the rest behind, one after another. It seems almost like a dream that has slowy faded.
Frodo: Not to me. To me it feels more like falling asleep again.
Faramir: My lord, you called me. I come. What does the king command?
Aragorn: Walk no more in the shadows, but awake! You are weary. Rest a while, and take food, and be ready when I return.
But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”
“A great shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from bed… “How do I feel?” he cried.” Well, I don’t know how to say it. I feel, I feel” — he waved his arms in the air — “I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!”
Way too many to put down right now. Let’s just say my favorite quotes are between all of the pages of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. And The Silmarillion has a few good ones too.
Well, I posted this one before, but…
“Revenge!” he snorted, and the light of his eyes lit the hall from floor to ceiling like scarlet lightning. “Revenge! The King under the Mountain is dead and where are his kin that dare seek revenge? Girion Lord of Dale is dead, and I have eaten his people like a wolf among sheep, and where are his sons’ sons that dare approach me? I kill where I wish and none dare resist. I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today. Then I was but young and tender. Now I am old and strong, strong, strong, Thief in the Shadows!” he gloated. “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!”
“What has it gots in its pocketses?”
I’m sorry not to have my books in front of me, because a lot of the lines in Tolkien’s work are good because they’re written so well, like the description of Smaug missing the cup the way a rich person might miss something that he’s never valued until it’s gone. Or of Beren saying that the Silmaril is even now in his hand.
Jonathan, great quote. I love Sam’s question, “Is everything sad going to come untrue?”
Derek, yes, that is the heart of that quote.
I’ve noticed in recent years more people latching on to it as an expression of Kingdom hope. It features in the wonderful Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones. It also provides the title for Jason Gray’s recent album Everything Sad Is Coming Untrue
My all-time favorite:
“You are a 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!”
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. ”
“‘Me sir!’ cried Sam, springing up like a dog invited for a walk. ‘Me go and see Elves and all! Hooray!’ he shouted, and then burst into tears.”
“Blackness and stench and crushing pain came upon Pippin, and his mind fell away into great darkness. ‘So it ends as I guessed it would,’ his thought said, even as it fluttered away; and it laughed a little within him as it fled, almost gay it seemed to be casting off at last all doubt and care and fear.”
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
“Well, I’m back.”
Just a few…
‘A chance for Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to show his quality!’
‘But if I should return, think better of me.’
Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow,
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.
None have ever caught him yet, for Tom he is the master,
His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster.
‘Do you remember that bit of rabbit, Mr Frodo?’ [Sam] said. ‘And our place under the warm bank in Captain Faramir’s country, the day I saw an Oliphaunt?’
‘No, I am afraid not, Sam,’ said Frodo. ‘At least, I know that such things happened, but I cannot see them. 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 left between me and the wheel of fire. I begin to see it even with my waking eyes, and all else fades.’
(The above quote, btw, cements Tolkien firmly in my mind as one of the four great writers of English Literature, one of the few who approach Shakespeare in his power of language. For the purposes of this comment, and copyright considerations, I refrain from simply reprinting the entire book!)
wow, this is the hardest assignment to date.
I”ll go with the first one that popped into m head and leave it at that:
“Samwise the Brave”
This isn’t a middle earth quote, but going over Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy-Stories” this quote struck me recently:
“Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.”
Now onto Middle Earth:
‘Yes, I am white now,’ said Gandalf. ‘Indeed I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have been.’
“But they are only a little people in old songs or children’s tales out of the North. Do we walk in legends or in the green earth in the daylight?”
“A man may do both,” said Aragorn. “For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!”
* * *
Yet in the wizard’s face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.
* * *
Frodo stood awhile still lost in wonder. It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured for ever. He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful.
* * *
To say that Bilbo’s breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
* * *
[From the author's introduction:]
“Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.”
“As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and a jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up in him, and he wanted to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking stick. He looked out of the window. The stars were out in a dark sky above the trees. He thought of the jewels of the dwarves sitting in dark caverns. . .”
” That’s right, ” said Gandalf. “Let’s have no more argument. I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to be enough for all of you. If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.”
‘I cannot jump the distance, you’ll have to toss me.’
That Tolkien was a card.
Korg, I know you know ‘and that means you’ meant me.
You made me do it.
Eowyn (Return of the King): “But no living man am I!”
Gandalf (The Hobbit): “What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”
I now have my books, so I will quote the two I couldn’t quote in my previous post.
“Then he [Smaug] 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.”
***
“Nay,” said Beren, “the king thy father hath the right [to ask for the Silmaril he demanded of Beren]. Lord,” said he, “I have a Silmaril in my hand even now.”
“Show me then,” said the king in amaze.
“That I cannot,” said Beren, “for my hand is not here”; and he held forth his maimed arm.
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” Gandalf
“Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it 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.”
Gandalf
“There is only one Lord of the Ring, only one who can bend it to his will. And he does not share power.”
Gandalf
Jonathan posted my favorite one. Oh, goodness, it’s so beautiful–that “Is everything sad going to come untrue?” is one of my favorite lines from anywhere, ever.
Here’s another one I love, from Eowyn:
“I stand in Minas Anor, the tower of the sun, and behold! The shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great riders, nor take delight only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.”
All my favorite LOTR quotes are here already:
From korg… “The Ents are going to wake up and find that they are strong…”
From Eric… Aragorn’s “A man may do both” quote…
From Catherine… Gandalf’s “Many that live deserve death…”
And of course, “Is everything sad going to come untrue?” Such a beautiful line and concept!
So I will just add a bit of poetry: From Sam’s song in Mordor, the final verse…
Though here at journey’s end I lie
In darkness buried deep
Beyond all towers strong and high
Beyond all mountains steep
Above all shadows rides the sun
And stars forever dwell
I will not say the day is done
Nor bid the stars farewell.…..
Hmm would have to be the line about enemies looking fair but feeling foul in the Fellowship, but I can’t find it >.<
[Frodo:] “I think one of his spies would — well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand.” “I see,” laughed Strider. “I look foul and feel fair. Is that it?”
‘Hey there!’ cried Tom, glancing towards him with a most seeing look in his shining eyes. ‘Hey! Come Frodo, there! Where be you a-going? Old Tom Bombadil’s not as blind as that yet. Take off your golden ring! Your hand’s more fair without it.’
So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dunedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.
Thank-you Jonathan!
That’s it ^_^
I love that line~
Korg, you added an extra “have” into the sentence that starts “But glad would he have been to know it’s fate”. I sit in silent admiration of Tolkien’s way with sentence structure, making an epic poem out of a straightforward explanation of provenance. How much more effective than just saying: the guy who made it back when to fight the witch king would have been glad to know that in the end it kicked his sorry ass.
The following quotes didn’t mean much to me until recently.
“It is sad that we should meet only thus at the ending. For the world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air. I do not think we shall meet again.”
“What do you fear, lady?” he asked.
”A cage,” she said. “To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”
“I am with you at present,” said Gandalf, “but soon I shall not be. I am not coming to the Shire. You must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for. Do you not yet understand? My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk to do so. And as for you, my dear friends, you will need no help. You are grown up now. Grown indeed very high; among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you.”
Joivre, if you haven’t yet, you should read The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. By far, the best book I’ve ever read.
Red Rocker,
Thanks for telling me a bout the superfluous have. That little bit about Merry’s sword sticks with me. I think it an important bit of lore regarding the Nazgul too. From memory it is the only place where Tolkien mentions “undead”. It “undead” a term that was about before Stoker used it in Dracula?
Too soon. For Sam still stood upon his feet, and dropping his own sword, with both hands he held the elven-blade point upwards, fending off that ghastly roof; and so Shelob, with the driving force of her own cruel will, with strength greater than any warrior’s hand, thrust herself upon a bitter spike. Deep, deep it pricked, as Sam was crush slowly to the ground.
No such anguish had Shelob ever known, or dreamed of knowing, in all her long world of wickedness. Not the doughtiest soldier of old Gondor, nor the most savage Orc entrapped, had ever thus enduured her, or set blade to her beloved flesh.
And far away, as Frodo put on the Ring and claimed it for his own, eben in Sammath Naur the very heart of his realm, the power in Barad-dur was shaken, and the Tower trembled from it foundations to its proud and bitter crown. The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him, and his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain to the door that he had made; and the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash, and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare. Then his wrath blazed in consuming flame, but his fear rose like a vast black smoke to choke him. For he knew his deadly peril and the thread upon which his doom now hung.
I looked up the origins of the term “undead”. Got as far as Wikipedia, which does credit Stoker with its contemporary usage:
Undead is a collective name for fictional, mythological, or legendary beings that are deceased yet behave as if alive. Undead may be incorporeal, such as ghosts, or corporeal, such as vampires and zombies. Undead are featured in the legends of most cultures and in many works of fantasy and horror fiction.
Bram Stoker considered the term “The Un-Dead” for the original title for his novel Dracula (1897),[1] and its use in the novel is mostly responsible for the modern sense of the word. The word does appear in English before Stoker but with the more literal sense of “alive” or “not dead”, for which citations can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary. Stoker’s use of the term refers only to vampires, and the extension to other types of supernatural beings arose later. Most commonly, it is now taken to refer to supernatural beings which had at one time been alive and continue to display some aspects of life after death, but the usage is highly variable.
Thanks Red Rocker,
That’s interesting.
“But glad would he have been to know its fate…” Iambic pentameter, much?
Of course it doesn’t last through the rest of the sentence, but observe how artistically he positions the stresses so they fall on the important words; you could almost think you were reading blank or alliterative verse. Tolkien wrote with poet’s feel for the rhythms of language, even in prose. His prose is some of the most musical this side of Traherne.
There’s some evidence that he did it slyly, like Tom Bombadil with his metered speeches. Have the analysts ever done a study? I might try myself marking out the rhythms, seeing how he make it work like a piece of music. It’s not too hard to do, though it takes a poet; like a lyricist writing in a comment…
Someone on Usenet noticed an alliterative verse passage embedded in LotR a few years ago:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books.tolkien/msg/02a35c9a2769b03e
Shared text… Characters on The Office were making Tolkein references on this week’s episode. Dwight, an established Potter fan, was irritated at his co-worker’s inferior knowledge. Classic.
Led Zeppelin also have Middle Earth references in some songs.
“You have dared to mock me and to question the power of Melkor, Master of the Fates of Arda.”
- Morgoth on reasons not to make fun of a Dark Lord
I’ve had a bizarre fascination with fictional villains ever since my childhood you know.