May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.

In one thing you have not changed, dear friend," said Aragorn: "you still speak in riddles." "What? In riddles?" said Gandalf. "No! For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying.

Criticism - however valid or intellectually engaging - tends to get in the way of a writer who has anything personal to say. A tightrope walker may require practice, but if he starts a theory of equilibrium he will lose grace (and probably fall off).

There was a fire in the wide hearth before them, and it was burning with a sweet smell, as if it were built of apple-wood.

Gandalf, dwarves and Mr. Baggins! We are met together in the house of our friend and fellow conspirator, this most excellent and audacious hobbit—may the hair on his toes never fall out!

Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.

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