This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
I know only two words of American slang, 'swell' and 'lousy'. I think 'swell' is lousy, but 'lousy' is swell.
Imagination | Knowledge | Light | Technology | Thinking |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
A time may come soon, said he, when none will return. Then there will be need of valour without renown, for none shall remember the deeds that are done in the last defense of your homes. Yet the deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised. She answered: All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honor, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death. What do you fear, lady? he asked. A cage, she said. To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.
Consequences | Evidence | Injustice | Injustice | Learning | Murder | Relationship | Sense | System | Murder | Learn | Think |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
Most writers enjoy two periods of happiness - when a glorious idea comes to mind and, secondly, when a last page has been written and you haven't had time to know how much better it ought to be.
Experience | Fear | Illusion | World |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Arise, arise, Riders of Th‚oden! Fell deeds awake, fire and slaughter! spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!
Women are wise impromptu, fools on reflection.
Ecstasy | Eternity | Experience | Golden Rule | Rule | Speculation | Time | World | Golden Rule |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
No matter how piercing and appalling his insights, the desolation creeping over his outer world, the lurid lights and shadows of his inner world, the writer must live with hope, work in faith.
Joy | Light | Mind | Sense | Thinking | Thought | Time | Thought |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
And she looked at him and saw the grave tenderness in his eyes, and yet knew, for she was bred among men of war, that here was one whom no Rider of the Mark could outmatch in battle.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I have not been nourished by English Literature... for the simple reason that I have never found much there in which to rest my heart (or heart and head together). I was brought up in the Classics, and first discovered the sensation of literary pleasure in Homer... I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason. They have bright color, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact ?mad?. . . but I don?t believe I am... I set myself a task, the arrogance of which I fully recognized and trembled at: being precisely to restore to the English an epic tradition and present them with a mythology of their own.
Light |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I will not give you counsel, saying do this, or do that. For not in doing or contriving, nor in choosing between this course and another, can I avail; but only in knowing what was and is, and in part also what shall be.
Anger | Behavior | Courage | Experience | Listening | Model |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Fear nothing! Have peace until the morning! Heed no nightly noises!
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
He loved mountains, or he had loved the thought of them marching on the edge of stories brought from far away; but now he was borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth. He longed to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by a fire.
Innovation | Means | Need |