Most people have made this mistake of thinking Middle-earth is a particular kind of earth or is another planet of the science fiction sort but it's just an old fashioned word for this world we live in, as imagined surrounded by the Ocean.

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

I should like to save the Shire, if I could - though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. But I don't feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.

But it seems that the wind is setting East, and the withering of all Woods may be drawing near.

A few melancholy birds were pipping and wailing, until the round red sun sank slowly into the western shadows; then an empty silence fell

Thief, thief, thief! Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!

Don't adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on on the story.