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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #tolkien
I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? ↗
#fiction #on-fiction #tolkien #writing #story
He is a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and twilight fancies, but he never invented them either: he found them a place to live, a green alternative to each day's madness here in a poisoned world. We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers - thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams. ↗
Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing? Where is the harp on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing? Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow; The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. Who shall gather the smoke of the deadwood burning, Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning? ↗
Gandalf never had this kind of problem. He had exactly this problem, actually, standing in front of the hidden Dwarf door to Moria. Remember when . . . I sighed. Sometimes my inner monologue annoys even me. “Edro, edro,” I muttered. “Open.” I rubbed at the bridge of my nose and ventured, “Mellon.” Nothing happened. The wards stayed. I guessed the Corpsetaker had never read Tolkien. Tasteless bitch. ↗
It is no bad thing celebrating a simple life. ↗
#fellowship-of-the-ring #j-r-r-tolkien #the-lord-of-the-rings #the-shire #life
And so it was settled. Sam Gamgee married Rose Cotton in the spring of 1420 (which was also famous for its weddings), and they came and lived at Bag End. And if Sam thought himself lucky, Frodo knew that he was more lucky himself; for there was not a hobbit in the Shire that was looked after with such care. When the labours or repair had all been planned and set going he took to a quiet life, writing a good deal and going through all his notes. He resigned the office of Deputy Mayor at the Free Fair that Midsummer, and dear old Will Whitfoot had another seven years of presiding at Banquets. ↗
#j-r-r-tolkien #marriage #rosie-cotton #sam #the-lord-of-the-rings
An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous. ↗
You truly are the most astonishingly beautiful hobbit I’ve ever seen,” he said, and Tamsyn froze. “Hobbit??” “Um, yes?” he said, and Tamsyn looked down at herself in panic. Her suit had disappeared and been replaced by a straight dress in a rustic homespun fabric of a drab, brownish grey. Her hair still looked the same, she established when she grabbed a handful and held it up in front of her face, but when she scrabbled up and caught a glimpse of her feet, her legs immediately lost their strength again. She thudded back down hard and grabbed her left leg, yanking her foot up to her eyes. It was bare, large and very, very hairy. She checked her other foot as well, hoping against all laws of probability that it would be different, and groaned in consternation when it looked the same as the left one. “This can’t be true!” she wailed, scrambling to get up again. “I’m a hobbit! ↗
He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. 'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,' he used to say. 'You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. ↗
