Quotes from JRR Tolkien

My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs).

Middle English is an exciting field - almost uncharted, I begin to think, because as soon as one turns detailed personal attention on to any little corner of it, the received notions and ideas seem to crumple up and fall to pieces - as far as language goes, at any rate.

But do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.

The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.

The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.

He stands not alone. You would die before your stroke fell.

Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary 'real' world.

It's a dangerous business, going out your door.

It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit.

So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings.

I've always been impressed that we are here, surviving, because of the indomitable courage of quite small people against impossible odds.

I am in fact a Hobbit, in all but size.