Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?" A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count.

And its object is Art not power, sub-creation not domination and tyrannous re-forming of Creation.

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

What course am I to take?" "Towards danger; but not too rashly, nor too straight.

Indeed you did your best...I hope that it may be long before you find yourself in such a tight corner again between two such terrible old men. ~ Gandalf to Pippin

Escaping goblins to be caught by wolves!” he said, and it became a proverb, though we now say ‘out of the frying-pan into the fire’ in the same sort of uncomfortable situations.

The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet it 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.