J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes

Like Adam, we have all lost Paradise; and yet we carry Paradise around inside of us in the form of a longing for, almost a memory of, a blessedness that is no more, or the dream of a blessedness that may someday be again.

Happiness is not only a hope, but also in some strange manner a memory ... we are all kings in exile.

MUSIC I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread. Now that I am without you, all is desolate, All that was once so beautiful is dead. Your hands once touched this table and this silver,And I have seen your fingers hold this glass. These things do not remember you, beloved: And yet your touch upon them will not pass. For it was in my heart you moved among them,And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes.And in my heart they will remember always: They knew you once, O beautiful and wise!

With you a part of me hath passed away; For in the peopled forest of my mind A tree made leafless by this wintry wind Shall never don again its green array. Chapel and fireside, country road and bay, Have something of their friendliness resigned; Another, if I would, I could not find, And I am grown much older in a day. But yet I treasure in my memory Your gift of charity, and young hearts ease, And the dear honour of your amity; For these once mine, my life is rich with these. And I scarce know which part may greater be,-- What I keep of you, or you rob from me.

Love is a hole in the heart.

There are moments when the grief comes bubbling up. The first time I saw Chris's chair empty, that was really hard. And it was hard when I started folding up some of his sweaters that I so imagine him wearing.

When I held in my hands the remains of Gunther, I had a strong feeling, like a phantom pain of an amputee.

When he died, he took a big piece of me with him. I'm sure that every time I do something, I'll think about having done it with Hef.

D'ye think I don't know?" he asked softly. "It's me that has the easy part now. For if ye feel for me as I do for you-then I'm asking you to tear out your heart and live without it.

Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance.

For you who came so far; for you who held out, wearing a black scarf to signify grief; for you who believe true love can find you amidst this atlas of tears linking one town to its own memory of mortar, when it was still a dream to be built and people moved there, believing, and someone with sky and birds in his heart said this would be a good place for a park.

We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren't, or of moments that could have been found but were forever hidden in the sands.

The nightingales are sobbing in The orchards of our mothers, And hearts that we broke long ago Have long been breaking others; Tears are round, the sea is deep: Roll them overboard and sleep.

Arms now empty will be filled and hearts now hurting from broken dreams and yearning will be healed.

With the death of my father, it wasn't just the objects of everyday life that had changed; even the most ordinary street scenes had become irreplaceable mementos of a lost world whose every detail figured in the meaning of the whole.

Fathers die.You keep on loving them in any way you can.You can't hide him away in your heart.

The friends we have lost do not repose under the ground...they are buried deep in our hearts. It has been thus ordained that they may always accompany us.

But what of life whose bitter hungry sea Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night Covers the days which never more return? Ambition, love and all the thoughts that burn We lose too soon, and only find delight In withered husks of some dead memory.

Everyone I have lost in the closing of a door the click of the lock is not forgotten, they do not die but remain within the soft edges of the earth, the ash of house fires and cancer in sin and forgiveness huddled under old blankets dreaming their way into my hands, my heart closing tight like fists. - "Indian Boy Love Song #1

There are a hundred places where I fear To go, --so with his memory they brim! And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, 'There is no memory of him here!' And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

Memory is the sense of loss, and loss pulls us after it.

What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd! How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void The world can never fill.