Katrina > Katrina's Quotes

“For I am the daughter of Elrond. I shall not go with him when he departs to the Havens: for mine is the choice of Luthien, and as she so have I chosen, both the sweet and the bitter.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“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, The Hobbit, Or, There And Back Again

“Fair speech may hide a foul heart.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“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 upon days without count.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fanshawe

“Still, I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We're in one, of course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out loud of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: 'Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring' and they'll say 'Oh yes, that's one of my favorite stories.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! My darling!
Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling.
Down along under the Hill, shining in the sunlight,
Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight,
There my pretty lady is, River-woman's daughter,
Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water.
Old Tom Bombadil water-lilies bringing
Comes hopping home again. Can you hear him singing?
Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! and merry-o,
Goldberry, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o!
Poor old Willow-man, you tuck your roots away!
Tom's in a hurry now. Evening will follow day.
Tom'sgoing hom again water lilies-bringing.
Hey! Come derry dol! Can you hear me singing?”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Farewell! I go to find the Sun!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“At the hill’s foot Frodo found Aragorn, standing still and silent as a tree; but in his hand was a small golden bloom of elanor, and a light was in his eyes. He was wrapped in some fair memory: and as Frodo looked at him he knew that he beheld things as they had been in this same place. For the grim years were removed from the face of Aragorn, and he seemed clothed in white, a young lord fall and fair; and he spoke words in the Elvish tongue to one whom Frodo could not see. Arwen vanimelda, namarie! He said, and then he drew a breath, and returning out of his thought he looked at Frodo and smiled.

`Here is the heart of Elvendom on earth,’ he said, `and here my heart dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread, you and I. Come with me!’ And taking Frodo’s hand in his, he left the hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as a living man.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons; it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien On Fairy-stories

“Now, therefore, I will sleep. I speak no comfort to you, for there is no comfort for such pain within the circles of the world. The uttermost choice is before you: to repent and go to the Havens and bear away into the West the memory of our days together that shall there be evergreen but never more than memory; or else to abide the Doom of Men."

Nay, dear lord," she said, "that choice is long over. There is now no ship that would bear me hence, and I must indeed abide the Doom of Men, whether I will or I nill: the loss and the silence. But I say to you, King of the Numenoreans, not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Eldar say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive."

So it seems," he said. "But let us not be overthrown at the final test, who of old renounced the Shadow and the Ring. In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.”
― J. R. R Tolkien

“The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending; or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous "turn" (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially "escapist," nor "fugitive." In its fairy-tale -- or otherworld -- setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien On Fairy-stories

“Grave and thoughtful was her glance, as she looked on the king with cool pity in her eyes. Very fair was her face, and her long hair was like a river of gold. Slender and tall she was in her white robe girt with silver; but strong she seemed and stern as steel, a daughter of kings.
Thus Aragorn for the first time in the full light of day beheld Eowyn, Lady of Rohan, and thought her fair; fair and cold, like a morning of pale spring that is not yet come to womanhood. And she now was suddenly aware of him: tall heir of kings, wise with many winters, grey cloaked, hiding a power that yet she felt. For a moment still as stone she stood, then turning swiftly she was gone.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“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?”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“Where there's life there's hope.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“Celtic 'is a magic bag, into which anything may be put, and out of which almost anything may come . . . Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight, which is not so much a twilight of the gods as of the reason.”
― J. R. R. Tolkien

“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 for ever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
Nor bid the Stars farewell.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“The world was fair, the mountains tall
In Elder Days before the fall...”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“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, The Fellowship of the Ring

“So it ends as I guessed it would,' his thoughts said, even as it fluttered away; and it laughed a little within him ere it fled, almost gay it seemed to be casting off all doubt and care and fear. And even as it winged away into forgetfulness it heard voices, and they seemed to be crying in some forgotten world far above:
'The eagles are coming! The eagles are coming!'
For one moment more Pippin's thought hovered. "Bilbo! But no! That came in his tale, long long ago. This is my tale, and it ended now. Good-bye!' And his thought fled far away and his eyes saw no more.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“I wished to be loved by another,' [Éowyn] answered. 'But I desire no man's pity.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“The odd thing about people who had many books was how they always wanted more.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, The Bell at Sealey Head

“Words, he decided, were inadequate at best, impossible at worst. They meant too many things. Or they meant nothing at all.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, In the Forests of Serre

“Epics are never written about libraries. They exist on whim; it depends on if the conquering army likes to read.”
― Patricia A. Mckillip