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What do you fear, lady? [Aragorn] asked. A cage, [Éowyn] 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.

J. R. R. Tolkien

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J. R. R. Tolkien
Age: 81 †
Born: 1892
Born: January 3
Died: 1973
Died: September 2
Author
Essayist
Historian
Illustrator
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Literary Critic
Military Officer
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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
John R. R. Tolkien
J-R-R Tolkien
Tolkien
J.R.R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
Great
Behind
Lady
Stay
Bars
Gone
Deeds
Age
Accept
Chance
Asked
Cage
Desire
Behinds
Cages
Use
Beyond
Recall
Fear
Accepting
Recalls

More quotes by J. R. R. Tolkien

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Books ought to have good endings.How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?
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Hobbits delighted in such things, if they were accurate they liked to have books filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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You cannot pass, he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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The doom lies in yourself, not in your name.
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We are plain quiet folk, and I have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, and uncomfortable things.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising I came singing into the sun, sword unsheathing. To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Art is the human process that produces by the way (it is not its only or ultimate object) Secondary Belief.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Do not spoil the wonder with haste!
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Dead men are not friends to living men, and give them no gifts. (Ghan-buri-Ghan, of allies during war)
J. R. R. Tolkien
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The world has changed. I see it in the water. I feel it in the Earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, For none now live who remember it.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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For myself, I find I become less cynical rather than more--remembering my own sins and follies and realize that men's hearts are not often as bad as their acts, and very seldom as bad as their words.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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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
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Escaping goblins to be caught by wolves!” he said, and it became a proverb, though we now say ‘out of the frying-pan into the fire’ in the same sort of uncomfortable situations.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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The Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects the generally small reach of their imagination - not the small reach of their courage or latent power.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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We don't want any adventures here! You might try over the Hill or Across the Water.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Perilous to us all are the devices of an art deeper than we possess ourselves.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo, a star shines on the hour of our meeting.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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As she stood before Aragorn she paused suddenly and looked upon him, and her eyes were shining. And he looked down upon her fair face and smiled but as he took the cup, his hand met hers, and he knew that she trembled at the touch.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen, of meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were, with morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair.
J. R. R. Tolkien