Great Throughts Treasury

"Why? Why do the fools fly?' said Denethor. 'Better to burn sooner than late, for burn we must. Go back to your bonfire! And I? I will go now to my pyre. To my pyre! No tomb for Denethor and Faramir. No tomb! No long slow sleep of death embalmed. We will burn like heathen kings before ever a ship sailed hither from the West. The West has failed. Go back and burn!"

"Why was I chosen?' 'Such questions cannot be answered,' said Gandalf. 'You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have."

"With a suddenness that startled them all the wizard sprang to his feet. He was laughing! I have it! he cried. Of course, of course! Absurdly simple, like most riddles when you see the answer. Picking up his staff he stood before the rock and said in a clear voice: Mellon! The star shone out briefly and faded again. Then silently a great doorway was outlined, though not a crack or joint had been visible before. Slowly it divided in the middle and swung outwards inch by inch, until both doors lay back against the wall."

"Why, Sam, he said, to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story was already written. But you?ve left out one of the chief characters; Samwise the stout hearted. ?I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why didn?t they put in more of his talk, dad? That?s what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn?t have got far without Sam, would he, dad?? Now, Mr. Frodo, said Sam, you shouldn?t make fun. I was serious. So was I, said Frodo, and so I am. We?re going on a bit too fast. You and I, Sam, are still stuck in the worst places of the story, and it is all too likely that some will say at this point ?Shut the book now, dad; we don?t want to read any more?. Maybe, said Sam, but I wouldn?t be one to say that. Things done and over and made into part of the great tales are different. Why, even Gollum might be good in a tale, better than he is to have by you, anyway. And he used to like tales himself once, by his own account. I wonder if he thinks he?s the hero or the villain? Gollum! he called. Would you like to be the hero, now where?s he got to again?"

"Wise men speak only of what they know."

"Without the high and noble the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless."

"With regard to fairy stories, I feel that it is more interesting, and also in its way more difficult, to consider what they are, what they have become for us, and what values the long alchemic processes of time have produced in them. In Dasent's words I would say: 'We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled.'"

"Would it? Would any of you have believed me till now? said Strider. I knew nothing of this letter. For all I knew I had to persuade you to trust me without proofs, if I was to help you. In any case, I did not intend to tell you all about myself..."

"Wraiths! Wraiths on wings!"

"Yes' Said Gandalf; 'for it will be better to ride back three together than one alone. We'll, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-Earth. Go in peace I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil."

"Yes, yes and i want to get unlost... As soon as possible!"

"Yes, that's so,' said Sam. 'And we shouldn't be here at all, if we'd known more about it before we started. But I suppose it's often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually ? their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on ? and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same ? like old Mr Bilbo. But those aren't always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we've fallen into?' 'I wonder,' said Frodo. 'But I don't know. And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to.' 'No, sir, of course not. Beren now, he never thought he was going to get that Silmaril from the Iron Crown in Thangorodrim, and yet he did, and that was a worse place and a blacker danger than ours. But that's a long tale, of course, and goes on past the happiness and into grief and beyond it ? and the Silmaril went on and came to E„rendil. And why, sir, I never thought of that before! We've got ? you've got some of the light of it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you! Why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still! It's going on. Don't the great tales never end?' 'No, they never end as tales,' said Frodo. 'But the people in them come, and go when their part's ended. Our part will end later ? or sooner."

"Yes, I am white now,' said Gandalf. 'Indeed I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have been."

"Yes, I am here. And you are lucky to be here too after all the absurd things you've done since you left home."

"Yet at the last Beren was slain by the Wolf that came from the gates of Angband, and he died in the arms of Tinviel. But she chose mortality, and to die from the world, so that she might follow him; and it is sung that they met again beyond the Sundering Seas, and after a brief time walking alive once more in the green woods, together they passed, long ago, beyond the confines of this world. So it is that Lthien Tinviel alone of the Elfkindred has died indeed and left the world, and they have lost her whom they most loved."

"Yes, they are elves, Legolas said. and they say that you breathe so loud they could shoot you in the dark. Sam hastily covered his mouth."

"Yes, yes we could. Spoiling nice fish, scorching it. Give me fish now, and keep nasty chips!"

"'Yes, yes my dear sir and I do know your name Mr. Bilbo Baggins. And you do know my name, though you don't remember that I belong to it. I am Gandalf, and Gandalf means me."

"Yet Frodo began to hear, or to imagine that he heard, something else: like the faint fall of soft bare feet. It was never loud enough, or near enough, for him to feel certain that he heard it; but once it had started it never stopped, while the Company was moving. But it was not an echo, for when they halted it pattered on for a little all by itself, and then grew still."

"Yet dawn is ever the hope of men."

"Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere."

"You are the luckiest, the canniest, and the most reckless man I ever knew. Bless you, laddie."

"Yet seldom do they fail of their seed, And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us."

"You are a set of deceitful scoundrels! But bless you! I give in. I will take Gildor's advice. If the danger were not so dark, I should dance for joy. Even so, I cannot help feeling happy; happier than I have felt for a long time."

"Yet in doubt a man of worth will trust to his own wisdom."

"You are who you attract."

"You aren't nearly through this adventure yet."

"You call a tree a tree, he said, and you think nothing more of the word. But it was not a 'tree' until someone gave it that name. You call a star a star, and say it is just a ball of matter moving on a mathematical course. But that is merely how you see it. By so naming things and describing them you are only inventing your own terms about them. And just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth. We have come from God (continued Tolkien), and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming a 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Out myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbor, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of evil."

"You are wise and fearless and fair, Lady Galadriel,' said Frodo. 'I will give you the One Ring, if you ask for it. It is too great a matter for me"

"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."

"You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin ? to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours ? closer than you yourself keep it. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway: there it is. We know most of what Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the ring. We are horribly afraid?but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds."

"You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after."

"You have nice manners for a thief and a liar, said the dragon."

"You ought not to be rude to an eagle, when you are only the size of a hobbit, and are up in hid eyrie at night!"

"You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say."

"You renounce your friendship even in the hour of our need ' he said. 'Yet you were glad indeed to receive our aid when you came at last to these shores fainthearted loiterers and well-nigh emptyhanded. In huts on the beaches would you be dwelling still had not the Noldor carved out your haven and toiled upon your walls."

"You may not like my burglar, but please don't damage him."

"You swore a promise by what you call the Precious. Remember that! It will hold you to it; but it will seek a way to twist it to your own undoing. Already you are being twisted. You revealed yourself to me just now, foolishly. Give it back to Smeagol you said. Do not say that again! Do not let that thought grow in you! You will never get it back. But the desire of it may betray you to a bitter end. You will never get it back. In the last need, Smeagol, I should put on the Precious; and the Precious mastered you long ago. If I, wearing it, were to command you, you would obey, even if it were to leap from a precipice or to cast yourself into the fire. And such would be my command. So have a care, Smeagol!"

"You shall not pass Gandalf Greyhame."

"You cannot pass,' he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. 'I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun. Go back to the Shadow You cannot pass."

"You will notice already that Mr. Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe, also that he was very fond of flowers."

"You take after Bilbo,' said Gandalf. 'There is more about you than meets the eye, as I said of him long ago.' Frodo wondered if the remark meant more than it said"

"You'll live to regret it, young fellow! Why didn't you go too? You don't belong here; you're no Baggins?you?you're a Brandybuck!' 'Did you hear that, Merry? That was an insult, if you like,' said Frodo as he shut the door on her. 'It was a compliment,' said Merry Brandybuck, 'and so, of course, not true."

"Your talk of sniffling riders with invisible noses has unsettled me."

"Your time may come. Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot be always torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do."

"Your time will come. You will face the same Evil, and you will defeat it."

"Your lullaby would waken a drunken goblin"