I don't know how to say it, but after last night I feel different. I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way. I know we are going to take a very long road, into darkness; but I know I can't turn back. It isn't right to see Elves now, nor dragons, nor mountains, that I want - I don't rightly know what I want: but I have something to do before the end, and it lies ahead, not in the Shire. I must see it through, sir, if you understand me.

I am wholly in favour of 'dull stodges'. A surprising large proportion prove 'educable': for which a primary qualification is the willingness to do work.

A friend of mine tells that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it.

For some time I lived in fear of receiving a letter signed 'S. Gollum'. That would have been more difficult to deal with.

I've always been impressed that we are here, surviving, because of the indomitable courage of quite small people against impossible odds.

I will not walk backward in life.

The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift, also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water. If it could do the one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's power.