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It gives me great pleasure, a good name. I always in writing start with a name. Give me a name and it produces a story, not the other way about normally.

J. R. R. Tolkien

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J. R. R. Tolkien
Age: 81 †
Born: 1892
Born: January 3
Died: 1973
Died: September 2
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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
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More quotes by J. R. R. Tolkien

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One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
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But you speak of Master Gandalf, as if he was in a story that had come to an end.' 'Yes, we do,' said Pippin sadly. 'The story seems to be going on, but I am afraid Gandalf has fallen out of it.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart, Éowyn!
J. R. R. Tolkien
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I will not walk backward in life.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Memory is not what the heart desires. That is only a mirror, be it clear as Kheled-zaram. Or so says the heart of Gimli the Dwarf.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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If you're going to have a complicated story you must work to a map otherwise you'll never make a map of it afterwards.
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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If you took this thing on yourself, unwilling, at others' asking, then you have pity and honour from me. And I marvel at you: to keep it hid and not to use it. You are a new people and a new world to me. Are all your kin of like sort? Your land must be a realm of peace and content, and there must gardners be in high hounour.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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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
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Not everyone who wanders is lost.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Go back? he thought. No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go! So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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He was as noble and fair in face as an elf-lord, as strong as a warrior, as wise as a wizard, as venerable as a king of dwarves, and as kind as summer.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Dwarves are not heroes, but a calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots some are not but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don't expect too much.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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A story must be told or there'll be no story, yet it is the untold stories that are most moving.
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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This of course is the way to talk to dragons, if you don't want to reveal your proper name which is wise, and don't want to infuriate them by a flat refusal which is also very wise. No dragon can resist the fascination of riddling talk and of wasting time to trying to understand it.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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He [Bilbo] fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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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.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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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.
J. R. R. Tolkien