Few there were who could change his courses by counsel. None by force.

So fair, so cold; like a morning of pale spring still clinging to winter's chill.

If you're going to have a complicated story you must work to a map; otherwise you'll never make a map of it afterwards.

Still, I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We're in one, of course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out loud of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: 'Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring' and they'll say 'Oh yes, that's one of my favorite stories.

No dragon can resist the fascination of riddling talk and of wasting time trying to understand it.

There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off.

I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones; and most of all I detest the segregation or separation of Language and Literature. I do not care which of them you think White.