Richard Paul Evans Quotes

I'd never heard of the 'Lord of the Rings', actually. So I went to the bookstore and there it was, three shelves of books about Tolkien and Middle-earth, and I was like, 'Holy cow, what else am I missing out on?'

My college roommate gave me her copy of 'Lord of the Rings,' and I read that probably five or six times - not because I think it's the greatest thing ever written, though some people certainly think it is - but the world he creates is so vivid. So real that he designed its own languages, history and mythology.

I still think 'The Lord of the Rings' is the greatest literary achievement in my lifetime. Like so many other people, I couldn't wait for the second and then the third book. Nothing like it had ever been written.

Lord of the Rings, I think, is far and away the most brilliantly done stuff.

I read 'The Hobbit' only when I was an adult. I had a lot of friends, teenagers, who discovered reading through 'The Hobbit,' but it wasn't something that I discovered until later in life.

I read 'The Hobbit' when I was twenty and first reading modern science fiction and fantasy. I followed it up with 'The Lord of the Rings,' which I still reread from time to time, but of the lot of it, I prefer 'The Hobbit.'

I'm a huge fan of Tolkien. I read those books when I was in junior high school and high school, and they had a profound effect on me. I'd read other fantasy before, but none of them that I loved like Tolkien.

When you read something, and especially when you're reading compellingly great, that becomes part of your identity, at least while you're reading it. You become changed by reading it.

I was fascinated by 'The Lord of the Rings' from about the age of eight, and that lasted well into my teens.

'Lord of the Rings' was going on; like, my college years were the years of 'Lord of the Rings,' an awesome time to be in film school.

The book of 'The Hobbit' was given to me to read by a friend of my mother when I was about 12 years old: it set my life on a different path. Next, I read 'The Lord of The Rings' trilogy, then 'The Silmarillion' and Homers 'The Odyssey' and every Greek/Roman/Viking myth book I could get my hands on. Pretty heavy reading for a 12 year old.

Everyone was very deeply involved in the world of 'The Lord of the Rings'. From the wardrobe department to lighting, all were fascinated with the story. This is something that does not happen usually.

'The Lord of the Rings,' published in the mid-1950s, was intended as a prehistory to our own world. It was perceived by Tolkien to be a small but significant episode in a vast alternate mythology constructed entirely out of his own imagination.

If I'm made to pick one transcendent reading experience, then it was listening to Miss Sarzin as - if we'd been very, very good - she read the next chapter of 'The Hobbit' aloud to us.

'Lord Of The Rings' fandom was massive, worldwide, entrenched. Generally it had been part of the fans' life all their life, because they had it read to them as children; they'd become Tolkien students.

Tolkien didn't just write 'The Hobbit,' he created a whole world.

Everyone in the '80s was reading Tolkien; he invented this whole medieval fantasy genre.

We've been told the same story for so long. We've seen literally 1,000 'Lord of the Rings' movies.

I'd never read 'Lord of the Rings' until I was asked to play Gandalf, so I didn't really know it was a frightfully famous book.

'Lord of the Rings' was a set of books in which the world had been conceived before the characters were placed within that context.

There are a couple of locations in 'The Hobbit' that are shared with 'Lord of the Rings.'

My favorite group growing up was 'The Hobbit.' It was the first book I actually finished. One of those adventure things that takes you to that land and it will forever hold a special place in my heart. I am not a huge book reader.

I love, love, love fantasy, like 'Lord of the Rings' and things like that.

'The Hobbit' was one of the first biggish books I ever read. I remember vividly the 'riddles in the dark' passage, and it meant a lot to me to finally get to play it after all these years.

Building on the work of George Macdonald, William Morris and Edward Plunkett, what became known as high fantasy was more or less invented by J. R. R. Tolkien.