J. R. R. Tolkien

"To many, perhaps to most people outside the small company of the great scholars, past and present, 'Celtic' of any sort is, nonetheless, a magic bag, into which anything may be put, and out of which a…"

"We find it difficult to conceive of evil and beauty together. The fear of the beautiful fay that ran through the elder ages almost eludes our grasp. Even more alarming: goodness is itself bereft of it…"

"You can make the Ring an allegory of our own time, if you like: an allegory of the inevitable fate that awaits all attempts to defeat evil power by power. But that is only because all power magical or…"

"That story was the only thing I have ever done which cost me absolutely no pains at all. Usually I compose only with great difficulty and endless rewriting. I woke up one day with that odd thing virtu…"

"Every morning I wake up and think good, another 24 hours' pipe-smoking."

"I am in fact a Hobbit . I like gardens, trees, and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food , but detest French cooking; I like, and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornam…"

"I wish life was not so short," he thought. "Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about."

"The unpayable debt that I owe to him was not "influence" as it is ordinarily understood, but sheer encouragement. He was for long my only audience. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my "stuff…"