J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes

I love the irony. I'm perceived as being really young and yet I have the clinical condition of an old man.

Death is the dark backing a mirror needs if we are to see anything

Irony is a disciplinarian feared only by those who do not know it, but cherished by those who do

This place was truly the highest and the lowest of all worlds - the most beautiful senses, the most exquisite emotions.. the most malevolent desires, the darkest deeds. Perhaps it was meant to be so. Perhaps without the lows, the highs could not be reached.

To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance.

Love and magic are like oil and water--they just don't mix.

Nobody loves the light like the blind man.

We are the only creatures that both laugh and weep. I think it's because we are the only creatures that see the difference between the way things are and the way they might be.

Splendid architecture, the love of your life, an old friend... they can all go drifting by unseen if you're not careful.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

While my friend always spoke about the sun, I kept speaking about the clouds, until one day I realized that it was the sun that allowed me to see the clouds.

Why do some people always see beautiful skies and grass and lovely flowers and incredible human beings, while others are hard-pressed to find anything or any place that is beautiful?

The absurd is essentially a divorce. It lies in neither of the elements compared; it is born of their confrontation.

He who knows nothing loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. But he who understands also loves, notices, sees. The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love.

I am so small I can hardly be seen. How can this great love be inside me? Look at your eyes. They are small, but they see enormous things.

Po swirled upward from where it had been sitting, and floated over to the window. "When you go swimming and you put your head under the water," Po said, "and everything is strange and underwater-sounding, and strange and underwater-looking, you don't miss the air do you? You don't miss the above-water sounds and the above-water look. It's just different." "True." Liesl was quiet for a moment. Then she added, "But I bet you'd miss it if you were drowning. I bet you'd really miss the air then."

When I look fast, I'm not smooth and I am going slowly. And when I look slow, I am smooth and going fast.

In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to question. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us.

I had seen the great, but I had not seen the small.

I remember thinking how often we look, but never see ... we listen, but never hear ... we exist, but never feel. We take our relationships for granted. A house is only a place. It has no life of its own. It needs human voices, activity and laughter to come alive.

To see a candle's light one must take it into a dark place.

Every man is wanted, and no man is wanted much.

Death is the black backing on the mirror that allows us to see anything at all.

It is part of the pholosophic dullness of our time that there are millions of rational monsters walking about on their hind legs, observing the world through pairs of flexible little lenses, periodically supplying themselves with energy by pushing organic substances through holes in their faces, who see nothing fabulous whatever about themselves.