And it is not our part here to take thought only for a season, or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age of the world.

Come, Mr. Frodo!' he cried. 'I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you.

That was Thorin's style. He was an important dwarf. If he had been allowed, he would probably have gone on like this until he was out of breath, without telling anyone there anything that was not known already. But he was rudely interrupted.

The dwarves of course are quite obviously, couldn't you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic. Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects (in general) the small reach of their imagination - not the small reach of their courage or latent power.

One writes such a story [The Lord of the Rings] not out of the leaves of trees still to be observed, nor by means of botany and soil-science; but it grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mold of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps. No doubt there is much personal selection, as with a gardener: what one throws on one's personal compost-heap; and my mold is evidently made largely of linguistic matter.

To think I should have lived to be goodmorninged by Belladonna Took's son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!

Pay heed to the tales of old wives. It may well be that they alone keep in memory what it was once needful for the wise to know.