Touching your cap to the Squire may be damn bad for the Squire, but it's damn good for you.

We are plain quiet folk, and I have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, and uncomfortable things.

Middle-earth is our world. I have (of course) placed the action in a purely imaginary (though not wholly impossible) period of antiquity, in which the shape of the continental masses was different.

In doubt a man of worth will trust to his own wisdom.

His face was sad and stern because of the doom that was laid on him, and yet hope dwelt ever in the depths of his heart, from which mirth would arise at times like a spring from a rock.

Farewell we call to hearth and hall! Though wind may blow and rain may fall. We must away ere the break of day. Far over wood and mountain tall.

Tears unnumbered ye shall shed.