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There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark.

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
Linguist
Literary Critic
Military Officer
Poet
Teacher
Translator
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
John R. R. Tolkien
J-R-R Tolkien
Tolkien
J.R.R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
Though
Ends
May
Better
Even
Towers
Things
Refuse
Begin
Dark

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Fear nothing! Have peace until the morning! Heed no nightly noises!
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And sometimes you didn't want to know the end… because how could the end be happy?
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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.
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I invented that little rhyme about 'One Ring to rule them all', I remember, in the bath one day.
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Each of us embodies, in a particular tale and clothed in the garments of time & place, universal truth and everlasting life.
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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.
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Middle-earth is our world. I have (of course) placed the action in a purely imaginary (though not wholly impossible) period of antiquity, in which the shape of the continental masses was different.
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I don't deny it, said Frodo, looking at Sam, who was now grinning. I don't deny it, but I'll never believe you are sleeping again, whether you snore or not. I shall kick you hard to make sure.
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There is no ship now that can bear me hence
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Your lullaby would waken a drunken goblin!
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If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
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What have I got in my pocket? he said aloud. He was talking to himself, but Gollum thought it was a riddle, and he was frightfully upset. Not fair! not fair! he hissed. It isn't fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it's got in it's nassty little pocketsess?
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Such bees! Bilbo had never seen anything like them. If one were to sting me, He thought I should swell up as big as I am!
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True education is a kind of never ending story — a matter of continual beginnings, of habitual fresh starts, of persistent newness.
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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.
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But to Sam the evening deepened to darkness as he stood at the Haven and as he looked at the grey sea he saw only a shadow in the waters that was soon lost in the West. There he stood far into the night, hearing only the sigh and murmur of the waves on the shores of Middle-Earth, and the sound of them sank deep into his heart.
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Let this be the hour when we draw swords together. Fell deeds awake. Now for wrath, now for ruin, and the red dawn. Forth, Eorlingas!
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Evidently we look so much alike that your desire to make an incurable dent in my hat must be excused.
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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.
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