“Don’t go where I can’t follow!”

Come, Mr. Frodo!’ he cried. ‘I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you.

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.

It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill.

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.

It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.

I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led. And through the air, I am he that walks unseen.

There are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go.

Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.

Fair speech may hide a foul heart.

Never laugh at live dragons.

The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.

I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.

I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am Ringwinner and Luckwearer; and I am Barrel-rider.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

Not all those who wander are lost.

Absence, the highest form of presence.

The secret of success is that it is not the absence of failure, but the absence of envy.

The problem in my life and other people’s lives is not the absence of knowing what to do but the absence of doing it.

Adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man that would have laid dormant in its absence.

We don’t actually fear death, we fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace.

If they don’t appreciate your presence, they may never recognize your absence.

Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.

I have decorated your absence with every flower you hate. I end up hating em all.