Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.

I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.

Lilly-flowers nodded their half-opened heads in the grass.

Elves are wondrous fair to look upon.

And all the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all men were hushed. And he sang...

Nobody believes me when I say that my long book is an attempt to create a world in which a form of language agreeable to my personal aesthetic might seem real. But it is true.

And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Ilúvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide ad beautiful, but slow...

I have in this War a burning private grudge—which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about...

All stories are ultimately about the fall.

A few melancholy birds were pipping and wailing, until the round red sun sank slowly into the western shadows; then an empty silence fell

The rule of no realm is mine, neither of Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for...

There are many powers in the world, for good or for evil. Some are greater than I am. Against some I have not yet been measured. But my time is coming.

“Be he foe or friend, be he foul or clean, Brood of Morgoth, or Bright Vala, Elda or Maia or Aftercomer, Man yet unborn upon Middle-earth, Neither law, nor love, nor league of swords, dread,...

Surely you do not disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just...